Columbia  ©nibersitp 
intbeCitpofiaetDgorfe 


LIBRARY 


GIVEN   BY 

Jeffereon  3.   Fletcher 


THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

IN  THE   LIGHT  OF  MODERN   CRITICISM 


THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

IN    THE    LIGHT    OF 
MODERN    CRITICISM 


BY 


JAMES    HARDY   ROPES 

BUSSEY  PROFESSOR  OP  NEW  TESTAMENT  CRITICISM  AND 
INTERPRETATION  IN  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 


NEW    YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1906 


Copyright,  1906,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

Published,  April,  1906 


Gift 


Ci 


TO  MY  FATHER 
WILLIAM  LADD  ROPES 


PREFACE 

The  following  essay,  substantially  in  its  present 
form,  was  prepared  for  a  course  of  Lowell  Insti- 
tute lectures,  given  in  March,  1904.  The  pur- 
pose for  which  it  was  originally  written  has  con- 
siderably affected  the  arrangement  and  the  mode 
of  presenting  the  subject.  The  writer's  aim  was 
not  to  offer  a  critical  examination  of  the  innumer- 
able questions  which  arise  in  the  study  of  the 
Apostolic  Age,  nor  to  cover  the  ground  with  en- 
cyclopedic completeness,  but  rather  to  outline  a 
sketch  from  which  a  popular  audience  might 
gain  a  stronger  sense  of  the  human  historical 
reality  which  modern  critical  study  finds  in  the 
men  and  events  of  this  stirring  period  of  the 
world's  history.  In  so  rapid  a  view  it  was  in- 
evitable that  many  matters,  even  of  some  impor- 
tance, should  be  inadequately  treated  or  left  alto- 
gether unmentioned,  and  any  thorough  student 
of  these  themes  will  frequently  observe  such 
gaps.  It  is  believed,  however,  that  there  is  value, 
even  to  the  scholar,  in  this  kind  of  a  brief  survey, 
provided  the  salient  points  of  reasonable  cer- 
vii 


PREFACE 

tainty  are  clearly  brought  out,  and  a  proper  pro- 
portion in  the  whole  is  observed. 

Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  literature  of 
the  subject  will  recognize  the  various  sources 
from  which  suggestion  and  guidance  have  been  de- 
rived; it  has  not  seemed  desirable  to  make  ac- 
knowledgments  in   detail. 

It  is  assumed  that  the  reader  will  be  familiar 
with  the  narrative  of  the  Book  of  Acts,  and  the 
repetition  of  what  can  be  read  there  has  been 
deliberately  avoided.  References  to  the  New 
Testament  have  been  given  only  when  they  seemed 
for  one  or  another  reason  to  have  special  in- 
terest. J.  H.  R. 


vni 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     Criticism  and  the  Apostolic  Age    .     .  1 

II.     The  Earliest  Christian  Missions    .     .  37 

III.  Jewish  Christianity  and  Its  Fate  .     .  65 

IV.  The  Apostle  Paul .  99 

V.     Paul's  Theology 134 

VI.     Life  in  an  Apostolic  Church  ....  169 

VII.     The  Apostles  and  the  Gospels    .     .     .  207 

VIII.     The  Preparation  for  Catholic  Chris- 
tianity        247 

IX.     Ancient   and    Modern   Study    of    the 

Apostolic  Age 289 


CRITICISM    AND    THE    APOSTOLIC    AGE 

In  the  body  of  intellectual  work  performed  by 
the  nineteenth  century  no  mean  place  has  been 
occupied  by  the  critical  study  of  ancient  history. 
Greece,  Rome,  Egypt,  the  far  East  have  oc- 
cupied the  attention  and  inspired  the  research 
of  some  of  the  best  minds  of  our  time.  Not  only 
have  the  discoveries  of  excavators  and  explorers 
brought  new  material  to  be  studied,  but  new 
points  of  view,  a  more  thorough  and  systematic 
method  of  investigation,  a  vastly  increased  corps 
of  trained  students  have  given  new  interest  to 
the  pursuit  of  the  knowledge  of  antiquity,  and 
have  led  to  great  achievements  in  positive  and 
assured  results.  In  every  part  of  the  field  the 
tendency  to  broaden  the  range  and  improve  the 
method  of  investigation  can  be  observed.  The 
study  is  made  to  cover  all  possible  sources  of 
knowledge,  written,  monumental,  institutional, 
which  can  contribute  to  the  complete  picture,  and 
it  is  attempted  to  take  account  of  all  the  relations 

1 


2  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

in  which  the  subject  studied  stands  to  its  sur- 
roundings, to  the  past,  and  to  the  future.  And, 
likewise,  the  aim  is  to  see  things  as  they  are,— not 
accepting  untrustworthy  statements,  not  failing 
to  scrutinize  the  sources  as  to  their  character  and 
competence,  not  reading  into  the  period  under  con- 
sideration the  conditions,  aspirations  and  ideas  of 
later  times,  but  striving  after  the  reality  of  truth, 
and  endeavoring  to  interpret  men  and  events  by 
their  own  nature  and  circumstance. 

This  kind  of  thorough  study  is  what  is  meant 
by  the  ** critical"  study  of  history.  It  follows 
many  of  the  same  principles  which  have  been 
wrought  out  in  the  practice  of  the  Law,  where  by 
long  experiment  lawyers  have  learned  how  to  de- 
termine the  value  of  human  testimony  and  of  cir- 
cumstantial evidence;  and  in  fact  the  trial  of  a 
case  in  court  is  an  example  of  one  kind  of  his- 
torical investigation.  It  follows  in  part  the 
method  of  the  natural  sciences,  where  the  existing 
facts,  capable  at  the  present  time  of  examination 
by  the  instruments  of  the  laboratory,  are  studied, 
and  from  them  is  elicited  not  only  the  composition 
of  the  substance,  or  the  function  and  mode  of 
activity  of  the  organism,  but  also  its  history  and 
origin,  its  relation  to  its  environment,  and  even 
some  knowledge  of  that  environment  itself.    These 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  3 

are,  however,  resemblances  and  not  identities.  In 
studying  history,  while  some  of  the  same  prin- 
ciples, as  well  as  the  same  ultimate  aim  of  firmly 
established  knowledge,  hold  good,  the  method  of 
applying  the  principles  necessarily  depends  on  the 
nature  of  the  subject  studied.  And  within  the 
field  of  history  critical  study  will  vary  its  method 
with  the  varying  nature  of  the  sources  which  are 
the  material  of  its  research.  It  will  approach 
with  one  inquiry  an  ancient  letter,  an  inscription 
with  another,  with  still  others  a  poem  or  an  his- 
torical narrative. 

Historical  study  is  not  critical  by  reason  of 
any  mysterious  and  magical  power  which  it  pos- 
sesses, still  less  because  of  the  character  of  the 
conclusions  it  reaches,  whether  confirmatory  of 
tradition  or  revolutionary.  Critical  study  of  the 
past  is  characterized  by  one  presupposition, 
namely,  that  the  past  can  be  understood,  and  by 
one  rule,  namely,  to  be  thorough.  This  presup- 
position and  this  rule  together  confer  upon  it  its 
right  to  be  called  critical. 

First,  as  to  the  presupposition.  A  form  of 
study  which  denies  that  the  analogies  of  human 
life  as  we  know  it  can  be  applied  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  past,  and  refuses  to  permit  an 
understanding  of  past  thinkers  through  the  forms 


4  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

of  our  own  consciousness,  which  limits  knowledge 
to  the  chronicle  of  facts  and  discards  the  idea 
of  tracing  the  connection  and  development  of 
those  facts,— such  a  study  of  the  past  may  be 
productive  of  much  learning,  but  it  is  not,  and 
would  not  desire  to  be  called,  critical.  A  clear  un- 
derstanding of  this  distinction  is  chiefly  important 
with  regard  to  what  is  commonly  called  sacred 
history.  There,  it  has  often  been  held,  the 
governing  hand  of  God  has  exercised  a  unique 
control  over  the  events,  so  that  the  actors  in  the 
history,  and  especially  the  prophets,  whose  domi- 
nation of  the  history  gives  chief  occasion  for  our 
interest  in  it,  did  not  receive  their  ideas  and  ideals 
by  a  process  of  psychological  mediation  which  the 
facts  of  our  own  consciousness  and  the  conscious- 
ness of  other  ancient  and  modern  men  enable  us 
to  understand.  This  history  then  becomes  not 
a  chain  of  causes  and  effects,  in  which  immanent 
divine  forces  have  wrought  out  the  purposes  of 
God,  but  an  inscrutable  series  of  divine  acts,  which 
we  may  observe,  but  the  processes  of  which  we 
cannot  expect  to  understand  except  as  God  may 
directly  reveal  knowledge  of  them  to  us.  We  can 
chronicle  the  external  facts,  but  we  may  not  pre- 
sume to  go  behind  them.  We  can  trace  the  prog- 
ress, we  must  not  call  it  a  development.    We  can 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  5 

register  the  thought  of  Isaiah  or  of  Paul ;  but  we 
must  not  try  to  explain  it,  except  by  declaring  it 
to  have  come  by  direct  inspiration  from  on  high. 
It  will  be  observed  that  the  distinction  here  drawn 
is  not  between  a  study  of  sacred  history  which  ad- 
mits and  one  which  denies  the  possibility  or  the 
occurrence  of  miracles.  A  critical  historian  can 
hold  a  philosophy  which  enables  him  to  accept 
miracles;  he  will  treat  them  as  ultimate  facts, 
like  any  other  ultimate  facts  with  which  he 
has  to  deal.  To  the  thorough-going  "non-criti- 
cal" historian,  however,  everything  is  a  miracle; 
all  his  facts  are  ultimate.  Such  a  mode  of  con- 
ceiving history  as  this  is,  of  course,  at  the  pres- 
ent day  seldom  or  never  carried  out  to  its  logical 
conclusion.  But  the  principles  here  indicated 
underlie,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  most  of 
the  sweeping  attacks  that  are  sometimes  made 
on  modern  historical  criticism  as  applied  to  the 
Biblical  history.  The  critical  method,  however, 
has  now  gained  such  momentum  that  it  has  im- 
pressed itself  even  on  those  who  oppose  it,  and  it 
would  hardly  be  possible  today  to  make  a  con- 
structive presentation  of  any  portion  even  of 
sacred  history  which  did  not  rest  in  part  on  the 
presuppositions  of  historical  criticism. 

Secondly,  as  to  the  ideal  of  thoroughness.    By 


6  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

this  is  meant  the  aim  to  use  all  sources  of  informa- 
tion, to  test  fearlessly  their  value  without  pre- 
possession in  favor  of  or  against  them,  and  to 
explore  fully  their  significance  for  the  history. 
To  exhaust  the  sources  is,  happily,  impossible. 
They  will  ever  furnish  new  light,  as  the  suc- 
cessive generations,  with  new  points  of  view, 
know  how  to  put  new  questions  and  so  gain  new 
and  better  answers.  If  critical  study  neglects 
any  part  of  the  evidence,  whether  archaeological 
or  literary,  it  thereby  just  so  far  becomes  un- 
critical. If  it  shows  a  prejudice  against  the 
traditional  view,  it  is  untrue  to  its  own  princi- 
ples. There  can  be  no  difference  of  opinion 
about  the  immediate  aim  of  historical  research. 
It  is  the  knowledge  of  the  truth.  The  conclu- 
sions will  show  differences,  but  these,  except  in 
so  far  as  they  depend  on  the  fundamental  dif- 
ference of  presupposition  already  discussed,  will 
be  mainly  due  to  the  meagreness  of  the  evidence, 
to  different  judgments  about  the  weight  of  this 
or  that  portion  of  it,  to  the  varying  estimate  put 
by  different  minds  on  one  or  another  process  of 
delicate  inference.  Moreover,  in  the  interpretation 
and  grouping  of  the  facts  subjective  points  of 
view  will  always,  and  properly,  find  their  place. 
In  the  supremely  important  fields  of  the  his- 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  7 

tory  of  Israel  and  of  the  origin  of  Christianity  the 
critical  study  of  history  has  been  pursued  with 
noteworthy  success.  In  the  Old  Testament  the 
traditional  representation  of  the  course  of  Israel- 
ite history  from  Moses  to  the  Exile  has  been 
shown  to  rest  on  a  misapprehension,  due  to 
the  transference  of  later  conditions  to  the  picture 
of  an  earlier  age.  Yet  even  from  the  legends 
of  early  times  in  Genesis  much  of  authentic 
history  preserved  in  strange  forms  has  been  res- 
cued, while  in  the  later  period  such  records 
have  been  identified  and  such  literary  monuments 
of  prophetic  words  preserved  that  a  clear  notion 
of  the  gradual  and  continuous  development  of 
Hebrew  religious  thought  can  be  formed.  The 
main  results  of  Old  Testament  investigation  are 
now  assured,  and,  although  countless  minor  points 
await  determination,  the  history  of  Israel,  as  now 
understood  by  critical  scholarship,  can  claim  ac- 
ceptance as  tested  and  known.  It  is  received  not 
only  by  believers  in  the  Bible  but  by  all  serious 
students  of  history  as  deserving  the  same  kind 
of  credence  as  the  history  of  Athens  or  of  Eng- 
land. 

In  the  New  Testament  the  present  situation 
of  critical  study  is  in  one  respect  different.  Here, 
as  in  the  kindred  subject  of  early  Church  his- 


8  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

tory,  which  relates  to  the  period  immediately 
succeeding  New  Testament  times,  good  progress 
has,  indeed,  been  made.  The  secular  historian  no 
longer  finds  himself  in  a  strange  world  when  he 
ventures  across  the  line  into  the  domain  of  sacred 
history.  His  own  tests  can  be  and  have  been  ap- 
plied. He  sees  the  regular  use  of  the  same  canons 
of  criticism  which  he  himself  wields,  to  deter- 
mine the  age  and  genuineness  of  documents  and  to 
estimate  the  worth  of  historical  statements.  And 
by  the  use  of  these  critical  methods  many  fixed 
points  have  been  established;  in  many  questions 
the  student  finds  firm  ground  under  his  feet.  But 
in  the  New  Testament  we  are  dealing  with  a  very 
brief  period  of  time,  in  which  very  exact  deter- 
mination of  dates  and  authors  is  demanded,  and 
very  detailed  statements  of  the  course  of  events 
need  to  be  made.  In  the  nature  of  the  case  it  is 
harder  to  arrive  at  these  with  certainty  than  it  is 
to  see  and  portray  the  broad  sweep  of  centuries. 
In  all  ancient  history  many  matters  have  to  be 
left  with  a  question  mark.  In  New  Testament  his- 
tory the  completeness  and  minuteness  desired  in 
our  knowledge  often  tends  to  give  a  false  impres- 
sion that  an  unduly  large  proportion  of  the  his- 
tory is  still  in  doubt.  This  impression  is  perhaps 
the  more  wide-spread  because  of  the  full  blaze  of 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  9 

publicity  in  which  critical  study  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment has  to  be  pursued.  In  the  history  of  Greece, 
or  of  the  origins  of  Buddhism,  only  the  final  re- 
sults, not  the  critical  processes,  are  brought  be- 
fore the  general  reader. 

The  task  before  the  New  Testament  scholar  is 
to  learn,  first,  what  is  certain,  then  what  are  the 
divergent  possibilities  and  how  great  the  margin 
of  doubt  with  regard  to  the  uncertain.  Progress 
is  surely  before  us,  to  be  attained  by  the  appli- 
cation to  the  evidence  of  more  thorough  criti- 
cism, by  greater  ingenuity  in  detecting  the  mean- 
ing of  the  phenomena,  and  especially  by  draw- 
ing upon  a  wider  knowledge  and  experience.  The 
better  knowledge  now  becoming  available  of  the 
background  of  late  Jewish  thought  which  lies 
behind  the  ideas  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  theology 
of  the  Apostle  Paul  is  one  means  of  bringing  new 
light  to  bear  on  New  Testament  problems.  A 
deeper  knowledge  of  the  Greek  world  into  which 
Christianity  came,  its  language,  its  religion,  its 
life,  is  another.  Palestinian  customs,  Jewish 
apocalypses,  Philo,  the  Septuagint,  Greek  religion 
and  philosophy,  the  freshly  examined  and  tested 
utterances  of  the  Church  Fathers,  and  truer  no- 
tions of  religious  psychology,  modern  as  well  as 
ancient,  all  these  can  contribute  to  that  body  of 


10  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

learning  from  which  will  come  new  points  of 
view  and  better  answers  to  our  questions  about 
the  New  Testament  history. 

In  all  historical  work  there  are  two  processes, 
the  determination  of  the  facts  and  the  interpreta- 
tion of  those  facts  in  their  relation  to  one  -an- 
other and  in  their  inner  meaning.  The  results 
which  have  already  been  reached  lead  to  the 
hope  that  in  the  determination  of  the  facts  a 
good  amount  of  ultimate  agreement  among 
scholars  may  be  attained.  The  situation  in  this 
respect  is  already  far  different  from  what  it  was 
one  hundred  years  or  seventy-five  years  ago.  But 
in  the  interpretation  of  the  facts  there  must  al- 
ways be  differences,  corresponding  to  the  different 
philosophical,  religious,  or  historical  modes  of 
thought  of  different  students.  Such  differences 
in  any  branch  of  history  are  only  the  sign  of 
healthy  life,  and  are  sure  to  continue  as  current 
experience  leads  men  to  dwell  now  more  on  this 
and  now  on  that  side  of  the  life  of  past  ages. 

The  history  of  the  New  Testament  period  falls 
into  two  sections,  the  Life  of  Christ,  and  the 
Apostolic  Age.  In  the  former  of  these  divisions, 
the  work  of  scholars  has  led  to  a  measure  of 
solid  result.  The  relations  of  the  sources  and 
their  limits  of  possible  date  are  now  well  made  out. 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  11 

The  historical  existence  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  many- 
facts  concerning  his  life  and  teachings  are  firmly 
held  by  all  sane  critics.  In  understanding  the 
meaning  and  purpose  of  his  sayings  and  espe- 
cially of  his  parables  great  progress  has  been 
made.  That  he  wrought  cures  upon  sick  persons 
and  those  who  were  believed  to  be  possessed  by 
demons  is  generally  believed.  All  this  is  the  re- 
sult of  modern  criticism.  It  must,  however,  be 
admitted  that  with  regard  to  the  life  of  Christ 
there  is  still  great  diversity  of  opinion.  Are 
the  narratives  of  the  birth  of  Jesus  legendary? 
What  were  the  actual  events  and  experiences 
which  gave  his  disciples  their  conviction  of  his 
resurrection?  What  did  Jesus  do  on  the  occa- 
sion when  the  storm  on  the  Lake  abated  as  sud- 
denly as  it  had  arisen?  Such  questions  are  still 
warmly  disputed.  And  more  general  problems 
are  yet  unsolved.  Did  Jesus  himself  claim  to  be 
the  Messiah  of  Israel  ?  What  did  he  mean  by  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  that  phrase  so  often  on  his  lips  ? 
Did  he  really  call  himself  the  Son  of  Man,  and 
what  did  he  mean  by  the  title?  And  the  great 
questions,  was  his  thought  mainly  ethical  or 
mainly  apocalyptic?  or  was  it  an  attempt  to  set 
forth  ethical  and  religious  principles  in  apocalyp- 
tic terms?    Was  he  an  enthusiast  or  a  plain  and 


12  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

rational  teacher  of  sober  truth?  How  shall  we 
think  of  his  self-consciousness?  What  did  he 
aim  to  do?  All  these  questions  obviously  relate 
not  at  all  to  the  theological  interpretation  of 
Jesus'  life  and  death  and  person,  but  solely  to 
the  historical  apprehension  of  them.  They  are 
matters  which  we  should  have  known  about  if  we 
had  been  present,  or  about  which  we  could  have 
asked  the  Master  if  we  had  been  among  the  com- 
pany of  his  disciples.  Whether  our  inquiries  on 
these  points  would  have  been  comprehensible  is 
another  question,  for  the  difficulty  of  answering 
some  of  these  questions  springs  from  the  modern- 
ness  of  the  presuppositions  by  the  aid  of  which 
they  are  framed.  The  progress  of  knowledge  here 
will  come  largely  through  greater  skill  in  put- 
ting questions  such  that  the  sources  will  enable 
us  to  answer  them. 

In  regard  to  some  of  these  matters  there  has, 
to  be  sure,  been  progress  in  knowledge.  But  in 
these  questions,  primarily  historical  as  they  are 
in  their  motive  and  form,  ultimate  agreement 
is  sure  to  be  checked  by  the  interplay  of  differ- 
ences of  personal  belief  concerning  Jesus  Christ. 
In  many  of  these  things  demonstration  is,  and 
probably  always  will  be,  out  of  the  question,  and 
while  the  literary  questions  of  the  date,  nature. 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  13 

and  purpose  of  the  Gospels  may  be  settled  within 
generally  acknowledged  limits,  such  an  agreement 
will  not  settle  the  further  and  more  vital  ques- 
tions of  historical  criticism.  In  the  criticism  of 
the  historical  statements  the  fact  that  the  main 
sources  all  go  back  to  the  common  tradition  of 
the  earliest  Church,  so  that  wholly  independent 
testimony  from  two  sides  to  the  same  events  is 
seldom  to  be  had,  will  for  long,  if  not  always, 
cause  the  final  decision  to  be  partly  on  sub- 
jective grounds.  That  is  to  say,  if  we  ask  what 
facts  of  the  life  of  Christ  are  fully  demonstrable 
by  the  methods  of  historical  criticism  and  are 
therefore  entirely  sure  to  become  accepted  by  all, 
we  shall  have  to  answer  that  such  facts,  while  they 
exist  and  are  supremely  important,  are  but  mod- 
erate in  number,  and  that  they  are  capable  of 
supporting  various  interpretations  of  our  Lord's 
person.  The  interpretations  will  differ  Avith  dif- 
fering philosophies  of  human  nature  and  of  the 
universe,  with  differing  attitudes  toward  the  con- 
ceptions of  ancient  tradition,  and  with  differing 
impressions  made  upon  the  individual  soul  by  the 
general  outlines  of  the  character  and  teachings  of 
Jesus  Christ.  And  the  varying  interpretations  of 
these  known  and  accepted  facts  will  in  return,  so 
far  as  we  can  see,  necessarily  control  the  judg- 


14  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

ment  of  different  students  with  regard  to  the 
other,  undemonstrable,  statements  of  the  Gos- 
pels. Such  of  those  statements  will  be  accepted 
as  a  basis  for  historical  construction  as  correspond 
to  the  general  notion  the  mind  has  formed  of  what 
sort  of  a  being  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was.  Those  will 
be  rejected  which  are  out  of  accord  with  the  in- 
dividual student's  general  conception.  Learning 
and  historical  criticism  can  do  much,  and  will 
do  more  and  more,  to  prepare  the  way,  by  widen- 
ing the  range  of  the  probable,  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  reducing  the  number  of  open  possibilities, 
and  by  illuminating  the  background,  but  in  the 
final  conclusion  personal  conviction  will  throw 
its    weight    into    the    delicately-balanced    scales. 

There  is  another  reason  why  differences  of 
opinion  with  regard  to  the  life  of  Christ  are 
likely  to  continue,  namely  the  impossibility  of 
fully  fathoming  the  great  and  divine  nature  which 
spake  as  never  man  spake,  and  whose  power  and 
characteristics  can  be  fully  known  only  by  the 
observation  of  its  effect  on  this  world.  Our 
psychology  fails  before  the  task,  and  yet  it  must 
ever  anew  be  attempted. 

When  we  turn  from  the  problems  of  the  Life 
of  Christ  to  the  Apostolic  Age  we  find  a  different 
situation.     Our  sources  are  indeed  meagre,  but 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  15 

at  least  some  of  them  are  certainly  of  first-hand 
quality,  and  the  thorough  investigations  of 
modern  criticism  have  made  it  possible  to  use 
these  with  confidence  and  fruitfulness.  Cautious 
inference  from  later  conditions,  new  insight  given 
by  slight  but  important  hints,  a  deeper  and 
broader  knowledge  in  many  fields  have  added  to 
our  resources.  Moreover  we  are  dealing  with  a 
world  many  parts  of  which  we  well  understand, 
with  the  actions  and  thoughts  of  men  whom  we 
may  expect  to  comprehend  through  the  analogy 
of  our  own  and  others'  minds,  men  who  were 
engaged  in  work  for  which  analogies  exist  in 
the  history  of  other  times.  For  all  these  reasons 
a  solid  body  of  critically  ascertained  knowledge 
would  be  expected  in  the  history  of  the  apos- 
tolic age.  And  it  is  becoming  increasingly  ap- 
parent that  such  is  to  be  had.  The  process  by 
which  this  result  has  been  and  is  being  reached 
will  be  a  subject  of  our  inquiry.  The  progress 
in  historical  criticism  over  the  situation  seventy- 
five  years  ago  is  enormous,  not  so  much  in  the 
bare  facts  affirmed  as  rather  in  the  solid  critical 
foundations  of  the  affirmations,  in  the  better  ap- 
prehension of  the  significance  and  mutual  rela- 
tion of  the  facts,  and  in  the  filling  in  of  many 
details  through  patient  and  critical  study  of  the 


16  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

sources.  The  gain  from  this  to  the  student  of 
later  periods  of  early  Church  history  can  hardly 
be  overestimated. 

But  the  importance  of  the  apostolic  age  has 
not  been  due  to  its  significance  for  the  mere  stu- 
dent of  history.  The  apostolic  age  has  always 
been  held  to  have  a  significance  for  the  Christian 
Church;  a  narrative  of  the  events  of  apostolic 
history  stands  beside  the  Gospels  in  the  canon; 
the  letters  of  an  apostle  to  his  friends  constitute 
a  quarter  of  the  New  Testament.  What  is  this 
significance  ? 

The  answer  to  this  question  will  depend  on 
our  conception  of  authority  and  of  development. 
If  Christianity  presents  itself  to  us  as  an  author- 
itative religion,  to  which  we  as  loyal  Christians 
must  subject  ourselves,  we  shall  have  to  inquire, 
What  is  this  religion,  in  its  teaching,  worship, 
organization  ?  We  would  practise  it ;  where  shall 
we  find  it  in  its  purity  and  perfection?  The 
obvious  answer  is,  in  the  apostolic  age,  when 
little  time  had  elapsed  for  external  influences  to 
introduce  elements  foreign  to  the  Christian  spirit, 
or  for  inner  seeds  of  corruption  to  produce  de- 
generacy. In  that  age,  still  fresh  with  the  recol- 
lection of  the  Founder's  life  and  under  the  direct 
impression   of   his   spirit,   we   should   expect   to 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  17 

find  pure  and  essential  Christianity.  Such  was 
the  view  of  the  Puritans,  and  in  accordance  with 
this  theory  they  attempted  to  reproduce  the 
theology,  the  forms  of  worship,  the  church-organ- 
ization of  the  apostolic  age  and  honestly  to  fol- 
low it  wherever  it  should  lead.  In  spite  of  the 
impossibility  which  will  always  meet  such  an 
attempt  to  restore  a  past  phase  of  life  the  Puri- 
tans' strenuous  endeavor  was  in  many  individual 
points  crowned  with  success.  Their  common- 
wealth was  not  the  apostolic  age  over  again, 
but  it  was  much  more  like  the  apostolic  age 
than  was  the  mediaeval  Church  against  which  they 
protested. 

On  the  other  side,  however,  a  more  than  plausi- 
ble defense  was  set  up  by  the  aid  of  the  principle 
of  development.  Christianity,  it  was  said,  may  have 
existed  in  purity  in  the  first  age,  but  its  perfec- 
tion was  not  presented  in  the  world  until  the 
forces  innate  within  it  had  had  an  opportunity  to 
work  themselves  out,  and  fulfil  their  promise  and 
potency.  This  development  is  to  be  seen  fully 
accomplished  by  the  third  and  fourth  centuries, 
when  organization,  liturgy,  and  doctrine  were 
complete,  and  the  demoralization  of  the  middle 
ages  had  not  yet  supervened.  The  church  of  Cyp- 
rian in  the  third  century,  and  the  theology  of 


18  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

Nic^a  in  the  fourth,  present,— said  the  Angli- 
can,—better  models  than  the  meagre  and  unde- 
veloped type  of  the  days  of  Peter  and  Paul. 

The  Puritan  had  the  best  of  this  argument,  for 
what  was  not  present  in  the  apostolic  age  can- 
not be  essential  to  the  Christianity  of  any  age, 
and  further  the  study  of  history  has  made  it 
more  and  more  plain  that  the  Christianity  of  the 
third  and  fourth  centuries  was  not  solely  the  nat- 
ural flowering  of  the  inner  spirit  of  Christianity 
itself.  In  fact,  however,  both  Puritan  and  church- 
man followed  much  the  same  method.  Each— 
if  we  take  each  party  at  its  best— was  aiming  to 
secure  the  interests  of  true  religion,  not  to  estab- 
lish a  museum  of  antiquities.  Each  seized  upon 
that  type  of  thought  and  expression  which  for 
him  most  contributed  to  the  ideal.  The  Puritan 
was  hindered  by  the  forms  and  customs  and  by 
some  parts  of  the  theology  of  the  Church.  The 
churchman's  sincere  pursuit  of  spiritual  religion 
was  aided  by  them.  Each  found  means  to  justify 
from  history  the  type  of  church  which  he  knew 
to  be  in  harmony  with  his  own  inner  needs.  Both 
Puritan  and  churchman  held  to  authority.  Their 
choice  of  what  authority  to  follow  in  order  to 
promote  the  ideal  which  both  cherished  was  deter- 
mined by  their  differing  types  of  mind. 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  19 

For  us  to-day  it  has  become  apparent  that  the 
Puritan's  argument  against  the  churchman  cuts 
deeper  than  he  knew.  If  it  holds  against  the 
authority  of  the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  it 
holds  likewise  against  the  authority  of  the  apos- 
tolic age  itself.  The  more  we  learn,  the  more  we 
see  that  the  apostolic  age  cannot  be  reproduced  to- 
day, for  the  reason  that,  like  every  other  Chris- 
tian age,  it  too  presents  Christianity  in  a  form 
governed  by  conditions  of  place  and  time  which 
are  extraneous  to  the  essence.  There  is  in  fact  no 
such  thing  in  the  world  as  essence  alone  without 
form.  We  can  make  the  abstraction  in  thought, 
but  in  a  living  world  it  has  never  been  seen  and 
never  will  be.  The  ' '  co-efficients, ' '  as  Harnack  has 
called  them,  are  always  present,  and  serve  to  give 
body  to  the  form  to  which  they  are  attached.  His- 
tory is  a  continuous,  although  progressive,  unity. 
Christianity  itself  is  incomprehensible  apart  from 
the  earlier  revelation  of  God.  Even  the  ideas  of 
Jesus  Christ  must  be  studied  in  the  light  of 
the  forms  of  Jewish  thought  with  which  they 
are  intertwined.  Extraneous  influences,  Jewish, 
Greek,  Teutonic,  oriental  are  shown  by  all  his- 
torical inquiry  to  have  been  at  work  moulding 
the  expression  of  Christianity  in  life  and  thought, 


20  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

and  some  of  them  have  been  active  from  the  very- 
earliest  days  of  Christian  history. 

The  pursuit  of  the  Puritan's  interpretation  of 
Protestantism  will  inevitably  bring  men  to  the 
rejection  of  the  Puritan's  own  theory.  Indeed, 
if  God  had  intended  men  to  follow  as  an  author- 
ity any  type  of  church  thought  or  life  or  organi- 
zation in  the  past,  he  would  surely  have  provided 
them  with  a  clear  and  complete  account  of  that 
normative  period.  Such  an  account  of  the  apos- 
tolic age  we  do  not  have.  The  instinct  of  the 
Catholic,  working  under  the  principle  of  author- 
ity, was  right,  although  his  argument  was  weak. 
He  chose  for  his  model  not  that  period  in  which 
the  details  are  hardest  to  determine,  but  one  that 
presented  in  clear  and  mature  shape  a  workable 
pattern  to  be  copied,  and  then  he  defended  it  as 
well  as  he  could.  In  fact,  we  must  abandon  the 
idea  of  authority  in  these  matters.  Neither  the 
apostolic  age  nor  any  other  period  is  a  model. 
Christianity  is  not  an  archaeological  puzzle.  The 
Christian  life  carries  authority  only  as  it  offers 
a  supreme  and  critical  opportunity,  and  its  ex- 
pression in  every  age  has  to  be  different  in  order 
that  Christianity  may  do  its  work  in  enlightening 
this  dark  world.  For  Wisdom  is  justified  of  all 
her  children. 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  21 

If,  then,  ^Ye  do  not  look  to  the  apostolic  age 
any  more  than  to  any  other  period  of  Christian 
history  to  furnish  a  working  model  and  an  au- 
thoritative standard  of  theology,  liturgy,  polity, 
what  is  its  significance?  why  our  eager  interest 
in  it  ?    Three  reasons  can  be  named. 

First,  only  through  understanding  the  apostolic 
age  can  the  succeeding  ages  be  understood.  Its 
contribution  to  these  made  them  largely  what  they 
were.  The  apostolic  age  was,  and  will  ever  be, 
the  key  of  Christian  history. 

Secondly,  the  records  of  the  origin  of  Chris- 
tianity have  come  to  us  from  the  apostolic  age, 
and  can  be  understood  only  through  a  critical 
knowledge  of  the  apostolic  age. 

Thirdly,  in  the  apostolic  age  itself  not  only  do 
we  have  an  heroic  age  of  the  Christian  Church, 
when  great  issues  were  at  stake  and  great  per- 
sonalities in  the  field;  we  have  exhibited  there 
the  first  impression  which  Christianity  left  on 
the  world,  in  thought  and  life.  Even  though  it 
be  not  normative,  it  yet  presents  Christianity  in 
relative  purity,  and  for  that  reason  possesses  an 
undying  significance  for  the  Church.  We  do  not 
find  there  essence  without  form,  but  we  do  find 
Christianity  in  its  first  estate  before,  for  instance, 
it  had  used  for  its  expression  the  full  subtlety  of 


22  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

Greek  philosophy;  we  see  it  before  the  masses 
of  the  pagan  world  had  been  converted  and  with 
all  their  peasants'  conservatism  had  brought  into 
the  Church  the  pagan  myths  and  pagan  rites  in 
which  they  had  been  reared.  We  know  in  Paul 
Christian  thought  before  the  savor  of  Judaism 
had  evaporated,  we  see  in  the  simple  life  of 
Christian  Jerusalem  and  Christian  Corinth  how 
Christianity  expressed  itself  before  complexity  of 
life  called  for  elaborate  organization,  and  before 
the  Church  began  to  think  of  ancient  precedents 
as  well  as  of  current  needs. 

A  word  is  needed  about  the  limits  which  sepa- 
rate this  period  from  previous  and  from  later  his- 
tory.   Its  beginning  was  definite.    When  the  body 
of  disciples  gathered  itself  together  in  Jerusalem 
after  the  Resurrection,  the  new  epoch  was  there, 
the  apostolic  age  had  begun.     Its  close  is  not  so 
distinctly  marked.     It  must  be  held  to  continue 
through  the  life-time  of  the  apostles,  and  to  in- 
clude  the    activity    of   the    longest-lived    among 
them,    who    probably    lingered    until    near    the 
turn  of  the  century.     Since  the  second  century 
introduces  us  to  a  new  spirit,  which  developed 
rapidly  into  the  well-formed  organism  of  the  Old 
Catholic  Church,  perfect  before  the  year  200,  the 
dividing  line  would  seem  to  fall  about  the  year 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  23 

100.  But  this  is  no  absolute  division.  Something 
of  the  spirit  of  the  later  period  is  found  before 
that  date;  many  typical  archaisms  survived  into 
the  succeeding  time.  The  apostolic  age  may  be 
defined  as  the  period  in  which  the  apostles  lived 
and  worked,  beginning  with  the  Resurrection,  and 
continuing  until  men  everywhere  realized  that  the 
early  enthusiastic  days  of  origins  were  past,  and 
that  they  were  living  permanently  established  as 
one  (albeit  the  most  important)  element  in  the 
great  world  of  civilization.  The  apostolic  age  is 
not  so  much  a  definite  period  of  years  as  it  is 
a  type  of  Christian  experience,  to  make  clear  the 
nature  of  which  will  be  the  purpose  of  our 
study. 

Our  knowledge  of  this  period  and  the  type  of 
Christian  experience  which  gave  it  its  unity  comes 
from  a  variety  of  sources.  The  only  narrative 
account  is  the  Book  of  Acts.  This  book,  form- 
ing the  sequel  to  the  Gospel  of  Luke,  with  which  it 
makes  a  single  piece  of  historical  literature,  nar- 
rates some  parts  of  the  early  history  from  about 
the  year  30  down  to  the  arrival  of  Paul  in  Rome 
about  the  year  60.  Within  the  limited  period 
covered  the  writer  has  evidently  devoted  much 
labor  to  the  accumulation  of  his  materials— how 
great  the  task  must  have  been  we  shall  not  easily 


24  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

over-estimate— and  has  presented  them  with  great 
skill;  but  much  that  we  should  like  to  know  is 
omitted  and  much  that  is  less  important  is  told 
with  needless  detail  or  with  great  diffuseness. 
The  presentation  is  governed  partly  by  the  writ- 
er's interest  in  picturesque  and  heroic  incidents, 
but  still  more  by  his  understanding  that  the  great 
fact  in  the  history  of  Christianity  has  been  its 
territorial  expansion  and  its  transference  from 
the  Jewish  to  the  Greek  world. 

How  trustworthy  the  tradition  is,  of  which  the 
earliest  record  comes  from  the  last  quarter  of  the 
second  century,  that  the  Book  of  Acts  was  written 
by  Luke,  a  gentile  travelling-companion  and 
the  beloved  physician  of  Paul,  can  be  determined 
only  by  the  internal  evidence  of  the  book  itself, 
and  hence  this  tradition  cannot  be  used  to  give 
credit  to  the  statements  of  the  book.  The  book 
was  plainly  written  by  a  gentile,  as  every  page 
testifies.  Of  the  events  which  took  place  at  Jeru- 
salem and  in  Syria  in  the  earliest  years  (approxi- 
mately chapters  i-xii  with  chapter  xv)  he  knew 
only  by  information  derived  from  others.  That 
any  part  of  his  material  here  came  to  him 
in  written  form  does  not  seem  to  me  to  have 
been  as  yet  demonstrated,  although  it  is  by  no 
means  impossible.     If  the  writer  was  Luke,  he 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  25 

went  with  Paul  to  Jerusalem  and  Csesarea  some 
twenty-five  or  thirty  years  after  the  death  of 
Jesus,  and  would  then  have  had  good  opportunity 
to  gather  information.  In  the  later  portions 
(chapters  xiii  and  xiv  and  chapters  xvi-xxviii) 
the  occasional  use  of  the  first  person  ("we") 
shows  either  that  the  writer  was  present,  and  is 
drawing  on  his  own  recollection  or  journal,  or 
else,  what  is  perhaps  less  likely,  that  he  has  in- 
corporated the  memoirs  of  an  eye-witness  other 
than  himself.  In  either  case  these  portions  pre- 
sent on  their  face  a  claim  to  be  immediately  de- 
rived from  a  participator  in  the  events,  and  this 
claim  is  for  the  most  part  amply  supported  by 
the  character  of  the  narratives  contained  in  these 
portions  of  the  book.  The  final  decision  as  to  the 
Lucan  authorship  of  Acts  as  a  whole  will  turn 
largely  on  the  question  whether  the  book  contains 
anywhere  statements  which  a  personal  companion 
of  Paul  could  not  have  written. 

But  already  the  larger  question  confronts  us  as 
to  what  confidence  we  may  have  that  the  pleasant 
narrative  of  Acts  is  true.  The  writer,  as  we  have 
said,  does  not  appear  to  have  been  present  at  Jeru- 
salem with  the  earliest  Christians;  even  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  book  only  a  small  part  is  accred- 
ited by  the  presence  of  the  person  (whether  the 


26  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

author  or  another)  whose  own  recollections  are 
embodied  in  our  book.  Before  many  decades  had 
passed  after  the  probable  date  of  Acts  men  wrote 
romances  about  the  apostles ;  may  not  Acts  be  but 
the  first  of  that  unsatisfactory  series  ? 

These  questions  criticism  has  to  face  and  an- 
swer. The  application  of  the  tests  which  are  used 
in  that  process  cannot  here  be  illustrated  in  any 
detail.  It  belongs  in  the  historical  workshop,  not 
to  the  finished  product.  In  this  essay  the  tests  can 
only  be  described,  but  the  use  of  them  should  un- 
derlie all  that  is  said. 

First  of  all  it  must  be  observed  that  the  most 
satisfactory  proof  in  such  an  inquiry  is  the  agree- 
ment of  two  independent  witnesses  of  whom  at 
least  one  is  already  known  to  be  competent.  That 
will  in  most  cases  give  practical  certainty.  In  the 
Book  of  Acts  something  of  this  is  secured  through 
the  statements  and  implications  of  the  epistles  of 
Paul.  AVhen  one  has  satisfied  himself  that  an 
epistle  of  Paul— as  for  instance  that  to  the  Gala- 
tians — is  genuine,  the  statements  which  that  epis- 
tle makes  about  matters  of  fact  within  Paul's  per- 
sonal knowledge  will  have  to  be  accepted  as  true. 
The  Book  of  Acts  has  plainly  not  used  those  epis- 
tles as  the  source  of  its  statements.  Accordingly 
we  have  here  a  test  from  a  relatively  independent 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  27 

source  of  the  accuracy  of  some  statements  in  Acts. 
The  most  important  point  at  which  this  test  has  to 
be  applied  in  the  criticism  of  Acts  is  at  the  ac- 
count of  the  Conference,  or  Council,  at  Jerusalem 
described  in  the  fifteenth  chapter,  and  referred  to 
at  some  length  in  the  second  chapter  of  Galatians. 
This  comparison  is  one  of  the  battle-grounds  of 
New  Testament  criticism.  The  question  has  to  be 
asked  whether  the  account  in  Acts  shows  irrec- 
oncilable differences  from  the  statements  of  Paul ; 
and  even  if  it  does  not,  whether  its  obvious  dif- 
ferences and  omissions  compel  the  conclusion  that 
Acts  was  written  with  a  partisan  bias  or  tendency 
such  as  would  lead  to  distortion  of  the  truth 
of  history.  If  such  a  bias  can  be  proved  here, 
the  trustworthiness  and  credibility  of  Acts  else- 
where will  be  seriously  discredited.  PauPs  con- 
version is  another  matter  of  great  importance 
where  light  is  thrown  on  Acts  by  incidental  refer- 
ences in  the  epistles. 

Another  test  is  secured  by  observing  those 
statements  or  allusions  in  Acts  which  relate  to 
facts  of  the  Jewish  or  gentile  world  otherwise 
known  to  us.  Both  the  presence  or  absence  of 
positive  errors  and  also  the  mode  and  frequency 
of  allusion  are  here  significant ;  for  the  well-bred 
guest  in  a  strange  house  will  be  recognizable  by 


28  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

the  difference  between  his  correct  but  slightly 
constrained  manner  and  the  perfect  freedom  of 
the  ordinary  members  of  the  household.  Now 
Acts  speaks  of  localities  in  Palestine,  of  the  Temple 
at  Jerusalem,  of  Jewish  parties  and  government 
officers.  It  also  refers  with  great  abundance  of 
detail  to  places  and  circumstances  in  Asia  Minor, 
Greece,  and  even  Italy.  All  these  can  be  tested 
by  the  resources  of  Palestinian  and  classical  arch- 
geology.  If  the  author  of  Acts  is  found  re- 
ferring to  all  these  things,  which  are  widely  scat- 
tered in  the  world  and  represent  different  civiliza- 
tions, and  if  he  can  be  shown  to  have  made  no  mis- 
takes, it  will  appear  that  he  had  good  information 
at  his  command  and  used  it  faithfully.  It  may 
even  seem  probable  that  he  was  a  contemporary 
and  saw  these  things  himself.  It  is  evident  that 
this  is  a  general,  not  a  complete,  test.  A  writer's 
knowledge  of  Ephesus  or  Athens  and  the  events  of 
Paul's  stay  there  does  not  give  us  an  assurance 
that  he  is  perfectly  accurate  in  everything  he 
says  about  the  death  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira, 
but  it  will  go  far  to  determine  our  general  atti- 
tude toward  the  writer  or  his  sources.  In  point 
of  fact  this  kind  of  study  shows  that  for  Palestine 
the  writer  of  Acts  had  good  but  not  perfectly  ac- 
curate information  about  places  and  things.    He 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  29 

writes  like  a  man  who  had  perhaps  visited  that 
country  once,  as  a  foreigner,  some  years  after  the 
events  he  is  describing.  He  is  cautions  in  his  al- 
lusions, and  even  so  makes  a  few  trifling  mis- 
takes. The  frequent  fulness  of  his  narrative  often 
suggests  the  labor  of  the  literary  artist  rather 
than  the  detail  of  the  eye-witness 's  photograph. 
On  the  other  hand,  of  matters  in  the  gentile 
world,— places,  things,  customs,  institutions,— he 
writes  with  entire  freedom  of  allusion  and  as  one 
who  knows  of  his  own  knowledge  a  world  in  which 
he  is  perfectly  at  home.  Whether  it  is  Lystra 
in  Lycaonia  or  Ephesus  or  Philippi  or  Athens 
or  Corinth  or  ]\Ialta  or  on  board  ship,  he  makes 
correct  reference  to  the  hundreds  of  facts  in- 
volved with  a  sure  touch  and  hardly  a  single  mis- 
take. And  his  references  are  found  correct,  not 
merely  for  the  conditions  which  persisted  to  a 
later  age,  but  for  the  special  and  rapidly  chang- 
ing conditions  of  the  precise  time  in  which  Paul 
worked. 

Besides  these  methods  of  testing  general  trust- 
worthiness, direct  tests  have  to  be  applied  to  the 
narrative  as  a  whole  and  to  its  details.  Does  the 
whole  course  of  the  history  hang  together  well  and 
commend  itself  as  a  consistent  and  natural  de- 
velopment from  elements  and  forces  which  we  can 


30  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

suppose  to  have  existed  at  the  outset?  Again,  in 
detail,  of  each  section  similar  questions  must  be 
asked.  Is  the  incident  self-consistent,  appropriate 
in  its  place,  free  from  incredible  features?  Does 
it  contain  what  would  elsewhere  be  set  down  as 
legendary  embellishment,  and,  if  so,  are  the  pecul- 
iar conditions  of  this  history  sufficient  to  account 
for  that?  Likewise  with  regard  both  to  the  gen- 
eral portrayal  of  the  period  and  to  each  individual 
section  it  must  be  asked  whether  the  scene  or  the 
circumstance  is  one  which  a  later  age  is  likely  to 
have  read  back  into  the  history  from  its  own  con- 
ditions and  ideals,  or  whether  (in  view  of  the 
changes  which  went  on)  it  is  such  that  it  could  not 
have  occurred  to  the  imagination  of  a  later  age  to 
invent  it.  In  a  word,  the  ultimate  task  of  histor- 
ical criticism,  in  Acts  as  in  any  other  book,  is  to 
show  the  extent  to  which  it  can  be  said  that  unless 
these  facts  had  been  actually  remembered  from 
the  time  when  they  occurred,  these  statements 
about  them  could  not  possibly  have  been  made. 

This  last  test  is  the  most  difficult  to  apply  satis- 
factorily, for  it  is  evident  that  the  general  prepos- 
sessions of  the  critic  will  necessarily  give  to  his 
results  a  partly  subjective  character.  In  Acts 
it  may  be  said  that  by  its  inner  consistency, 
naturalness  of  development,  and  correspondence 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  31 

with  the  whole  situation,  the  general  course  of 
events  narrated  commends  itself  as  probable,  and 
that  the  individual  incidents  do  not  seem  to  be 
fictitious.  In  some  instances,  however,  we  find 
ourselves  suspecting  that  incidents  may  be  dupli- 
cated, or  have  received  a  wrong  significance ;  and 
sometimes  it  may  be  that  a  growth  of  legend  has 
attached  itself  to  a  real  incident,  for  neither  by 
the  probable  date  of  the  book  and  the  writer's 
sources  of  information,  nor  by  any  other  available 
guarantee  of  accuracy  is  the  possibility  of  some 
legendary  growth  excluded. 

On  the  ultimate  question  of  the  trustworthiness 
of  the  Book  of  Acts  opinions  have  varied  from  the 
extreme  of  skepticism,  which  has  refused  to  use 
the  book  as  a  witness  for  anything  except  the  state 
of  mind  of  the  author  and  his  contemporaries,  to 
a  perfect  trust  in  the  infallibility  of  the  letter.  At 
present  the  tendency  is  to  greater  confidence  in 
most  of  its  statements.  It  approves  itself  not  as 
infallible  nor  as  equally  trustworthy  in  all  its 
parts,  but  yet  as  so  good  history  that  a  discrim- 
inating use  of  it  yields  a  solid  body  of  critically 
sifted  knowledge. 

Fortunately,  however,  we  are  not  restricted  for 
our  information  to  the  Book  of  Acts.  There  are 
other  sources  which,   when   critically  used,   are 


32  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

available  for  extending  our  view,  so  that  we  can 
have  some  considerable  knowledge  of  matters  of 
which  Acts  does  not  treat  at  all;  and  the  history 
of  the  apostolic  age  nowadays  includes  many  topics 
of  large  historical  moment  not  brought  to  our  at- 
tention by  the  author  of  Acts.  From  various  scat- 
tered writers  a  very  few  historical  statements  have 
come  down  to  us;  but  besides  these  we  have  the 
epistles  of  one  of  the  great  actors  in  the  events, 
the  Apostle  Paul.  The  most  important  of  these 
are  beyond  question  genuine,  and  give  vivid  pic- 
tures of  life  and  thought  in  the  Christian  churches 
of  Paul's  day.  The  other  New  Testament  epistles 
are  as  yet  less  easy  to  date  and  to  use.  From  the 
Gospels,  which  were  written  in  our  period  and 
unconsciously  reflect  something  of  its  problems 
and  circumstances,  not  a  little  can  be  learned 
about  it;  the  Gospel  of  John  contains  not  only 
tradition  of  Jesus'  life,  but  much  of  apostolic 
thought. 

These  are  the  direct  sources.  But  upon  this, 
as  upon  every  other  field  of  history,  however 
small,  light  falls  from  many  sides.  From  the 
thought  and  writings  of  the  next  following  period 
of  the  Church  many  inferences  may  be  drawn. 
Especially  those  Jewish  and  Greek  worlds  of 
thought  and  of  outward  affairs  into  which  Chris- 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  33 

tianity  pushed  itself,  must  be  known,  if  we  would 
understand  the  apostolic  age.  The  increase  in 
such  knowledge  is  daily  bringing  better  compre- 
hension of  facts  and  words.  Almost  every  branch 
of  knowledge, — ^philology,  geography,  even  astron- 
omy,— has  its  contribution  to  make  to  the  problems 
of  the  subject.  In  detail  they  are  endless,  and 
sometimes  seem  hopeless.  Yet,  even  now,  if  we  do 
not  make  inordinate  demands  with  reference  to 
unimportant  details,  a  fair  general  picture  is 
attainable,  in  which  as  much  confidence  can  be 
placed  as  would  be  justified  in  any  other  depart- 
ment of  ancient  history. 

We  shall  need  at  every  stage  of  our  study  to 
remember  that  a  phenomenon  like  the  Christian 
Church  must  be  looked  at  in  two  ways,  first,  to 
see  its  external  form,  as  it  would  have  appeared 
to  an  observant  outsider  who  might  have  had 
occasion  to  study  it ;  secondly,  to  discover  its  char- 
acter as  seen  from  within,  its  fundamental  mo- 
tives, convictions,  and  aspirations.  We  do  not 
fully  understand  that  period  unless  we  have  ad- 
equate knowledge  on  both  these  sides.  And  again, 
from  another  point  of  view,  we  have  to  examine 
two  aspects  of  the  period  and  of  each  stage  in  it. 
We  have  to  ask  not  only  about  its  own  individual- 
ity and  how  it  differed  from  other  periods,  but 


34  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

equally  what  it  contributed  to  the  next  following 
stage. 

I  shall  try  so  to  sketch  the  apostolic  age  that  it 
may  be  understood  in  these  several  respects. 
These  men  and  women  were  like  ourselves  of  flesh 
and  blood.  We  must  try  to  think  of  them  as  real, 
governed  by  human  motives,  thinking  and  acting 
like  the  human  beings  around  us.  They  are  not 
shadowy,  though  heroic,  figures  moving  in  a  silent 
procession  through  a  dimly-lighted  scene.  And 
yet  they  are  not  wholly  like  us.  They  had  a  back- 
ground of  ideas  most  of  which  we  lack.  They 
lacked  many  of  the  ruling  conceptions  of  our 
thought.  It  is  our  task  to  reproduce  this  life  as 
that  of  real  men  and  at  the  same  time  to  refrain 
from  attributing  to  these  our  brethren  that  which 
belongs  only  to  us  late-comers  in  the  human  fam- 
ily. To  withdraw  ourselves  from  our  modern 
ideas  without  transporting  ourselves  to  an  un- 
earthly land  of  romance  is  difficult,  but  it  must  be 
attempted. 

The  general  conception  of  the  apostolic  age 
from  which  the  following  chapters  are  written  will 
become  plain  as  we  proceed.  To  the  writer  of  the 
Book  of  Acts  the  essential  fact  in  the  apostolic  age 
was  that  Christianity  from  being  a  Jewish  sect 
had  become  a  world-religion.  He  describes  the  life 


CRITICISM  AND  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  35 

of  the  Jewish  sect,  he  shows  the  process  of  transi- 
tion, he  tells  the  story  of  repeated  attempts  to 
check  the  advance,  and  he  lets  us  see  the  new 
religion  at  last  established  in  the  capital  of  the 
world.  Now  to  us,  as  to  this  acute  observer  of  the 
first  century  after  Christ,  this  transition  which  he 
so  emphasizes  is  still  the  most  significant  aspect 
of  the  period.  But  we  can  also  observe  that  to  the 
apostolic  age  belong  two  other  transitions,  which 
require  to  be  recognized  and  understood,  one  at 
its  beginning,  the  other  marking  its  close.  When 
the  Jewish  type  of  Christianity  came  into  being, 
it  was  through  a  great  initial  transition,  that, 
namely,  from  the  life  of  immediate  human  inter- 
course with  Jesus  of  Nazareth  to  that  of  member- 
ship in  the  Church  of  Christ,  the  Lord  in  heaven. 
And  so  likewise  the  conclusion  of  the  age  is 
marked  by  a  third  transition,  that  from  the  primi- 
tive and  apostolic  to  the  permanent,  and  what 
finally  became  the  Catholic,  form  of  Christian  life. 
These  three  transitions  make  the  scaffolding  of 
our  history. 

We  shall  look  first  at  the  process  by  which  Chris- 
tianity spread,  and  at  Jewish  Christianity,  with 
which  our  period  begins.  Thence  we  pass  on  to 
speak  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  the  eminent  personality 
of  the  age,  whose  thought  can  be  known  directly 


36  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

from  his  own  writings.  "With  Paul  are  naturally 
associated  the  gentile  Christian  churches,  at  once 
the  medium  in  which  he  worked  and  the  result  of 
his  life-work.  They  illustrate  the  prevailing 
character  of  Christianity  in  the  apostolic  age 
through  the  larger  part  of  the  world,  and  give 
us  the  stage  which  followed  in  direct  succession 
upon  Jewish  Christianity.  Besides  Paul,  however, 
there  were  other  leaders  at  work  in  the  apostolic 
age,  notably  Peter,  and  besides  Paul's  epistles 
other  writings  were  produced,  notably  the  Gospels. 
Further,  in  the  various  aspects  of  thought  and 
life  in  the  apostolic  age  we  shall  see  the  elements 
and  tendencies  forming  from  which  grew  the 
marked  characteristics  of  the  Catholic  Christianity 
which  is  found  essentially  complete  about  one 
hundred  years  later,  just  before  the  end  of  the 
second  century.  Finally,  no  view  of  the  apostolic 
age  is  complete  which  does  not  take  some  notice  of 
the  history  of  modern  critical  investigation. 


n 

THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS 

The  first  missionary  preaching  of  Christianity 
was  that  of  Jesus  himself,  who  came  into  Galilee, 
as  is  described  in  the  Gospel  of  Mark,  announcing 
that  the  kingdom  of  God  was  nigh  at  hand,  and 
calling  upon  men  to  repent  in  preparation  for  it. 
The  method  of  his  earlier  ministry  was  to  sound 
this  cry  as  widely  as  possible.  He  refused  to  stay 
in  Capernaum,  where  the  exorcism  of  a  demon  had 
stirred  popular  interest,  but  went  about  to  the 
other  towns  and  villages  of  Galilee,  that  he  might 
"preach  there  also."  Before  long  we  find  him 
sending  out  his  Twelve  Disciples  in  pairs  preach- 
ing "that  men  should  repent."  The  latter  part  of 
his  ministry  was  less  occupied  with  this  missionary 
activity,  and  more  with  the  preparation  of  his 
disciples  for  their  difficult  task  of  maintaining 
his  cause  after  his  death.  It  may  well  be  that 
many  of  the  sayings  of  the  Master  inciting  to 
missionary  preaching  or  giving  directions  as  to 
the  method  of  the  work  come  from  this  later 
37 


38  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

period  of  Jesus'  ministry.  "There  is  nothing 
covered  that  shall  not  be  revealed;  and  hid  that 
shall  not  be  known.  What  I  tell  you  in  the  dark- 
ness, speak  ye  in  the  light;  and  what  ye  hear  in 
the  ear,  proclaim  upon  the  housetops.''  *'Ye  are 
the  light  of  the  world.  .  .  .  Neither  do  men 
light  a  lamp  and  put  it  under  the  bushel,  but 
on  the  stand;  and  it  shineth  unto  all  that  are  in 
the  house.  Even  so  let  your  light  shine  before 
men."  Sayings  like  these,  re-enforced  as  they 
were,  by  the  parables  in  which  the  gradual  growth 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  was  set  forth  under 
the  figure  of  mustard-seed  or  leaven  or  a  field  of 
grain,  and  supported  by  the  whole  impression  of 
the  activity  of  Jesus  Christ  himself,  were  enough 
to  make  the  Christian  Church  into  a  missionary 
body.  But  these  positive  influences  from  the  Mas- 
ter were  also  sustained  by  other  motives.  Deep 
in  human  nature  lies  the  impulse  from  which  the 
missionary  enterprises  of  all  the  great  religions 
have  proceeded.  With  the  Jews  of  the  first  cen- 
tury in  particular  this  passion  for  proselytizing 
was  conspicuous.  And  the  Christians  had  a  still 
stronger  motive  in  their  sincere  national  loyalty. 
Their  heart's  desire  and  supplication  was  for 
their  kinsmen,  who  were  Israelites,  to  whom  God 
had  given  adoption,  glory,  covenants,  law,  ritual, 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  39 

promises,  the  traditions  of  the  patriarchs,  the  hope 
of  a  Messiah.^  These  must  be  won  to  accept  the 
divinely  offered  salvation  before  the  rapidly  ap- 
proaching end  of  all  things  should  close  in  on  the 
world  and  leave  unsaved  those  who  had  rejected 
the  Christ  of  God.  Every  spark  of  Jewish  patriot- 
ism must  have  united  with  the  other  motives  to 
make  the  first  Christians  into  missionaries. 

The  missionary  work  of  the  Church  began  at 
Jerusalem,  where  were  gathered  those  disciples 
whom  the  experiences  of  the  Resurrection  had 
recovered  to  a  new  faith.  There  is  every  reason  to 
accept  the  representation  of  the  Book  of  Acts  that 
they  occupied  themselves  from  the  first  not  only 
with  their  own  pious  exercises,  but  with  attempts 
to  gain  recruits  to  their  number  from  the  Jews 
of  the  city.  Their  earliest  missionary  activity 
may  well  have  been  less  public  than  the  narrative 
of  Acts  conceived  it.  We  can  hardly  think  that 
the  police  authorities  would  have  allowed  the 
movement  started  by  a  leader  now  executed  as  a 
revolutionary  criminal  to  put  itself  forward  at 
once  in  full  publicity,  and  to  stir  with  great 
assemblies  the  life  of  the  town.  Yet,  even  though 
in  quieter  and,  as  it  were,  subterranean  fashion, 
the  missionary  work  proceeded,  and  the  body  of 

iRom.  X.   1;  ix.  3-5. 


40  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

Christians  grew.  The  figures  given  by  Acts  repre- 
sent the  impression  of  a  later  time,  but  are  not 
impossible,  and  they  testify  at  any  rate  to  the 
recollection  of  a  steady  and  large  increase,  suf- 
ficient to  account  for  the  great  numbers  of  Chris- 
tians who  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  later  lived 
at  Jerusalem.^ 

The  first  step  of  importance  outside  Jerusalem 
was  made,  we  are  told,  in  consequence  of  a  per- 
secution which  compelled  the  Christians  to  leave 
the  city.  Scattering  into  the  country  districts  of 
Palestine,  they  everywhere  carried  with  them  the 
Gospel.  Doubtless  this  spread  of  Christian  faith 
through  Judaea  and  Galilee  and  Samaria  would 
in  any  case  have  come  about  with  time;  it  was 
hastened  by  necessity,  and  Saul  of  Tarsus,  the 
leader  of  the  persecution,  even  while  harrying  the 
Church,  rendered  it  his  first  service. 

Of  the  character  of  Christian  life  at  this  time 
we  can  learn  something  from  the  collections  of 
sayings  of  Jesus  which,  whatever  their  original 
purpose  and  occasion,  were  evidently  compiled  in 
order  to  furnish  a  kind  of  handbook  of  missionary 
practice  for  those  times. 

These   twelve   Jesus    sent   fortli,    and    charged 
them,  saying,  Go  not  into  any  way  of  the  gentiles, 
*  Acts  xxl.  20. 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  41 

and  enter  not  into  any  city  of  the  Samaritans:  but 
go  rather  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel. 
And  as  ye  go,  preach,  saying.  The  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  is  at  hand.    Heal  the  sick,  raise  the  dead, 
cleanse  the  lepers,  cast  out  demons:  freely  ye  re- 
ceived, freely  give.     Get  you  no  gold,  nor  silver, 
nor  brass  in  your  purses;  no  wallet  for  your  jour- 
ney, neither  two  coats,  nor  shoes,  nor  staff:   for 
the   laborer    is    worthy   of   his    food.     And    into 
whatsoever  city  or  village  ye  shall  enter,  search 
out  who  in  it  is  worthy;  and  there  abide  till  ye 
go  forth.    And  as  ye  enter  into  the  house,  salute 
it.     And  if  the  house  be  worthy,  let  your  peace 
come  unto  it:   but  if  it  be  not  worthy,  let  your 
peace   return   to  you.     And  whosoever  shall   not 
receive  you,  nor  hear  your  words,  as  ye  go  forth 
out  of  that  house  or  that  city,  shake  off  the  dust 
of  your  feet.     Verily  I  say  unto  you.  It  shall  be 
more    tolerable    for    the    land    of    Sodom    and 
Gomorrah  in  the  day  of  judgment,  than  for  that 
city. 

Behold,  I  send  you  forth  as  sheep  in  the  midst 
of  wolves:  be  ye  therefore  wise  as  serpents,  and 
harmless  as  doves.  But  beware  of  men:  for  they 
will  deliver  you  up  to  councils,  and  in  their  syna- 
gogues they  will  scourge  you;  yea  and  before 
governors  and  kings  shall  ye  be  brought  for  my 


42  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

sake,  for  a  testimony  to  them  and  to  the  gentiles. 
But  when  they  deliver  you  up,  he  not  anxious 
how  or  what  ye  shall  speak:  for  it  shall  he  given 
you  in  that  hour  what  ye  shall  speak.  For  it  is 
not  ye  that  speak,  hut  the  Spirit  of  your  Father 
that  speaketh  in  you.  And  brother  shall  deliver 
up  brother  to  death,  and  the  father  his  child:  and 
children  shall  rise  up  against  parents,  and  cause 
them  to  he  put  to  death.  And  ye  shall  be  hated 
of  all  men  for  my  name's  sake:  but  he  that  en- 
dureth  to  the  end,  the  same  shall  be  saved.  But 
when  they  persecute  you  in  this  city,  flee  into  the 
next:  for  verily  I  say  unto  you.  Ye  shall  not  have 
gone  through  the  cities  of  Israel,  till  the  Son  of 
Man  be  come. 

And  be  not  afraid  of  them  that  kill  the  body, 
but  are  not  able  to  kill  the  soul;  but  rather  fear 
him  who  is  able  to  destroy  both  soul  and  body 
in  hell.^ 
The  picture  needs  no  explanation  or  comment. 
The  work  has  been  well  compared  with  the  silent, 
rapid,  pervasive  spread  of  the  Franciscan  move- 
ment in  its  earlier  years,  when  friend  told  friend 
and  humble  preachers  set  the  good  news  forth 
to  eager  villagers,  until  the  land  was  filled  with 
men  and  women  touched  by  the  new  spirit.     Of 

1  Matthew  x.  5-23,  28. 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  43 

the  same  sort,  and  fed  by  even  more  intense  ear- 
nestness and  devoted  concentration,  we  are  to 
imagine  the  missionary  work  of  the  first  Chris- 
tians in  Palestine. 

Of  the  details  of  the  outward  course  of  this 
work  we  know  comparatively  little.  The  choice 
of  recollections  to  be  preserved  in  the  Book  of 
Acts  is  governed  partly  by  the  writer's  purpose  of 
showing  the  progress  of  the  Christian  religion 
into  Samaritan  territory,  partly  by  the  desire  to 
record  certain  striking  incidents  and  miracles. 
Besides  the  work  in  Samaria  w^e  hear  of  Christians 
and  Christian  work  at  Joppa  and  Lydda  and  else- 
w^here  in  the  coast-plain,  or  '  *  Sharon. ' '  The  move- 
ment extended  itself  to  CoBsarea,  and  to  Galilee. 
It  was  so  important  at  Damascus  that  Saul  made 
a  special  journey  thither  to  suppress  it.  Across 
the  sea  at  Cyprus,  north  to  Phoenicia,  and  even  to 
the  distant  city  of  Antioch,  the  Corinth  of  the 
East,  the  missionaries  went.  How  firmly  Chris- 
tianity  was  planted  in  these  districts  w^e  cannot 
say.  There  must  have  been  many  scattered  Chris- 
tians, and  there  were  some  churches,  but  the  main 
body  of  the  Jewish  population  remained  un- 
touched. It  was  the  great  sorrow  of  early  Chris- 
tianity that  the  Jews  as  a  whole  found  in  the 
Cross  a  stumbling-block.     We  can  still  read  the 


44  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

pathetic  disappointment  in  Paul's  words/  and 
between  the  lines  of  the  Gospels.  The  situation  in 
later  times  seems  to  show  that  although  Christians 
were  scattered  throughout  Palestine,  they  were 
not  numerous  in  the  larger  towns,  and  were  still 
fewer  in  the  country.  Here  and  there  was  a 
Christian  or  a  Christian  family,  but  the  main 
body  of  the  new  faith  had  its  seat  in  Jerusalem, 
whither  the  scattered  Christians  had  returned 
after  the  persecution.  This  was  the  result  of  the 
first  fifteen  years  of  Christian  missions. 

All  this  w^ork  was  the  natural  extension  of  the 
religion  with  the  same  methods  and  led  by  the 
same  motives  which  had  governed  the  believers 
from  the  start.  At  Antioch  in  Syria  there  came  a 
change,  which  the  writer  of  Acts  ^  with  perfectly 
correct  judgment  perceives  to  have  marked  a  great 
moment  in  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church. 
Hitherto  faith  in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah  had  been 
propagated  among  Jews,  with  but  rare  excep- 
tions. At  Antioch  gentiles  were  attracted  by 
the  new  religion  and  became  converts.  In  this 
event  Christianity  stepped  forth  at  the  third  city 
of  the  world  into  the  world's  life.  The  occasion  was 
accompanied  by  the  creation  of  a  new  name,  Chris- 

1  Rom.  ix-xi. ;  II  Cor.  iii.  14,  15. 

2  Acts  xi.  19-26. 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  45 

tians,  which  their  heathen  neighbors  now  began  to 
apply  to  the  disciples.  Already  before  this  time 
the  great  persecutor  of  the  churches  had  been  con- 
verted to  the  faith  of  which  he  once  made  havoc, 
and  now  Paul  became  a  leader  in  the  Christian 
church  which  had  just  established  itself  at  An- 
tioch,  while  Antioch  instead  of  Jerusalem  became 
the  starting-point  of  Christian  missionary  enter- 
prise. 

The  change  in  the  position  of  Christianity  in- 
volved in  the  existence  of  a  partly  gentile  church 
at  Antioch,  conscious  of  having  an  independent 
right  beside  the  mother-church  at  Jerusalem, 
caused  a  great  change  in  Christian  missions.  In 
what  year  this  change  took  place  we  cannot  tell, 
but  the  date  must  have  been  not  far  from  45  a.  d. 
While  the  first  fifteen  years  had  been  occupied 
mainly  with  quiet  work  in  Palestine,  the  following 
ten  or  fifteen,  from  the  beginning  of  Paul's  mis- 
sionary journeys  to  the  time  of  his  arrest  at  Jeru- 
salem, were  to  see  the  establishment  of  Chris- 
tianity at  great  centres  of  Asia  Minor  and  Europe. 
It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  we  have 
here  for  the  first  time  the  Christian  Church,  as  we 
have  received  it  and  know  it. 

With  Paul  at  Antioch  was  Barnabas,  like  him 
a  Jew.    He  had  come  from  the  island  of  Cyprus 


46  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

and  after  spending  some  time  at  Jerusalem,  where, 
doubtless,  he  became  a  Christian,  was  led  to  enter 
into  the  growing  work  in  Antioch,  and  seems  to 
have  been  the  recognized  leader  there.  These  two, 
with  John  Mark,  another  Jew  from  Jerusalem, 
set  out  under  the  commission,  and  perhaps  sup- 
ported by  the  contributions,  of  the  Christians  in 
Antioch.  The  story  of  their  journey  is  told  with 
many  picturesque  incidents,  and  a  lifelike  freedom 
and  accuracy  of  detail  that  can  only  come  from 
direct  and  trustworthy  information,  in  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  chapters  of  Acts.  The 
missionaries  proceeded  through  Cyprus  from  east 
to  west,  with  what  success  we  do  not  know.  Then 
they  turned  to  the  mainland  of  Asia  Minor  and 
(Mark  having  for  some  cause  left  them)  visited  a 
series  of  towns  in  Phrygia  and  Lycaonia, — Anti- 
och, Iconium,  Lystra,  Derbe,— in  which  they  found 
it  possible  to  gather  Christian  churches.  At  Derbe 
they  turned  back,  retraced  their  steps  in  Asia 
Minor,  and  so  returned  to  the  Syrian  Antioch. 
How  much  time  the  journey  occupied  we  are  not 
told.  If  we  may  judge  by  the  reasonable  proba- 
bilities of  the  case,  it  cannot  have  been  less  than 
a  year  and  a  half,  two  summers  and  the  interven- 
ing winter;  it  might  well  have  been  even  longer. 
The  chief  importance  of  this  journey  lay  not 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  47 

merely  in  the  fact  that  several  churches  had  been 
founded  in  territory  hitherto  unoccupied,  from 
which  Christianity  might  spread  still  farther.  It 
was  contained  in  the  vast  promise  for  the  wider 
future  given  by  this  practical  demonstration  that 
the  Gospel  could  find  a  ready  hearing  in  the  active 
commercial  towns  of  the  west  and  that  the  Greek 
world  contained  thousands  of  persons  ready  and 
eager  for  what  Christianity  had  to  offer.  It  has 
often  been  said,  and  truly,  that  Jesus  Christ  was 
born  into  the  world  only  when  the  fulness  of 
time  had  come.  One  element  of  the  fulness  of 
time  lay  in  the  development  of  ancient  Hebrew 
and  later  Jewish  religious  thought,  in  which  God 
had  revealed  himself  to  men  and  in  consequence  of 
which  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ  were 
possible.  The  other  element  was  the  condition  of 
the  Grgeco-Roman  world,  in  which,  and,  so  far  as 
we  can  see,  in  it  alone,  the  progress  of  the  Gospel 
was  possible.  All  the  most  important  charac- 
teristics of  the  civilized  world  which  conduced 
to  the  spread  of  Christianity  are  illustrated  in  this 
first  journey  of  the  apostles  Barnabas  and  Paul. 
They  used  the  opportunity  afforded  by  Jewish 
synagogues,  they  found  everywhere  audiences  who 
could  be  addressed  in  the  Greek  language,  they 
enjoyed  the  protection  of  the  Roman  civil  order 


48  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

and  profited  by  the  ease  and  freedom  of  travel, 
and  they  found  men  eager  to  hear  religious  teach- 
ing.   Let  us  glance  at  these  aspects  of  the  world. 

In  the  first  place  the  dispersion  of  the  Jews 
throughout  civilized  countries  had  prepared  the 
way.  It  is  a  mistake  to  think  of  the  Babylonian 
captivity  and  other  forcible  deportations  as  the 
cause  of  this  dispersion.  Partly  through  such 
causes  but  largely  by  impulses  acting  within  a 
prolific  and  enterprising  race  the  world  had  be- 
come full  of  Jews.  They  had  followed  the  lines 
of  trade  and  settled  at  the  main  seats  of  industry ; 
in  some  cases  large  migrations  to  newly  founded 
cities  had  taken  place  on  the  special  invitation  of 
rulers  who  prized  the  Jewish  traits  of  orderliness 
and  thrift.  Everywhere  they  had  carried  the  Law 
and  the  Synagogue,  so  that,  as  the  Book  of  Acts 
says,  Moses  from  generations  of  old  had  in  every 
city  them  that  preached  him,  being  read  in  the 
synagogues  every  Sabbath.  And  not  only  did  the 
Jews  in  Syria,  Asia  Minor,  Greece,  Italy,  Africa, 
maintain  on  the  whole  their  corporate  individu- 
ality in  the  several  towns,  but  they  everywhere 
made  successful  attempts  to  win  new  adherents, 
proselytes,  from  the  surrounding  gentile  popula- 
tion. To  their  synagogues  Greek  men,  and  espe- 
cially Greek  women,  were  attracted.     The  lofty 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  49 

and  rigorous  moral  precepts,  the  noble  monothe- 
ism, the  observance  of  the  Sabbath,  and  the  dis- 
tinctions between  clean  and  unclean  food  won 
large  numbers  of  persons  to  adopt  something  of 
the  Jewish  religion.  Some  subjected  themselves 
wholly  to  Jewish  requirements,  including  circum- 
cision, and  so  gained  the  advantage  of  the  exemp- 
tions and  political  privileges  of  the  Jews.  Most, 
however,  did  not  go  so  far,  but  remained  in  the 
class  of  half -conforming  attendants  at  the  Jewish 
services;  "devout  persons,"  "ones  that  wor- 
shipped God,"  these  are  called  in  the  Book  of 
Acts.  Such  persons  Paul  finds  in  every  Jewish 
synagogue  that  he  addresses,  and  their  numbers 
are  attested  by  the  references  of  the  Roman  satir- 
ists. In  this  class,  touched  already  by  the  ideas  of 
Judaism,  with  which  Christianity  could  make  con- 
nection, but  not  bred  to  its  exclusiveness  nor 
finally  and  fully  drawn  into  its  circle,  Christianity 
found  at  first  its  best  field.  It  is  going  too  far  to 
say  that  in  this  early  period  no  one,  so  far  as  we 
know,  came  into  the  Christian  Church  except  by 
this  door,  but  it  is  yet  only  an  exaggeration  of  the 
facts. 

The  significance  of  this  Jewish  preparation  of 
the  Greek  world  to  receive  Christianity  was  greatly 
increased  by  the  existence  and  wide  circulation  of 


50  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

the  Greek  translation  of  the  Old  Testament,  the 
Septuagint.  From  the  Bible  of  the  Jews,  already 
in  the  hands  even  of  many  gentiles  whom  they  ad- 
dressed, the  Christian  preachers  could  show  that 
the  Scriptures  testified  of  him  whom  they  served. 
And  in  it  they  not  only  pointed  to  prophecy,  now 
at  last  fulfilled,  but  they  could  use  precious  doc- 
trine and  moral  precept.  The  existence  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  Greek  was  a  factor  second  to  none  in 
the  preparation  of  the  world  for  Christianity,  and 
we  are  subject  to-day  to  the  consequences  of  it. 
But  this  already  brings  us  to  a  second  element  in 
Greek  civilization  which  made  the  progress  of 
Christianity  possible,  namely  the  Greek  language. 
Those  in  every  way  most  likely  to  become  obedient 
to  the  Gospel  lived  in  the  towns,  and  there  men 
spoke  Greek.  Now  this  tongue  was  not  only  by  its 
origin  fitted  to  express  the  ideas  of  Greeks,  as 
was  requisite  for  the  language  of  Christianity ;  it 
had  also  been  adapted,  as  we  have  seen,  through 
the  translation  of  the  Old  Testament  and  through 
several  centuries  of  use  by  Jews  to  be  the  vehicle 
of  Jewish  thought.  It  thus  contained  in  itself  all 
that  Christianity  needed.  Moreover,  for  Chris- 
tian use,  the  language  was  at  a  fortunate  stage 
in  its  history.  It  had  become  far  simpler  than 
ever  before  and  easier  for  plain  men,  not  highly 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  51 

educated,  to  employ  for  literary  purposes ;  and  it 
was  a  language  flexible  and  adaptable  to  the  uses 
of  new  thought.  In  it  Christianity  could  make  it- 
self comprehensible ;  for  in  it  had  been  expressed 
all  the  past  upon  which  Christianity  stood,  and 
yet  as  a  living  tongue  it  was  capable  of  respond- 
ing instantly  and  fully  to  the  living  spirit  of  the 
new  faith.  Without  the  Greek  language  it  is  hard 
to  imagine  the  spread  of  Christianity  through  the 
world. 

A  third  circumstance  which  assisted  the  rapid 
growth  of  Christianity  was  the  existence  of 
the  Roman  world.  In  it  life  and  property 
were  generally  safe.  Paul  testifies  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans  that  the  magistrate  is  a  minister  of 
God  for  good,  and  he  repeatedly  found  this  true 
in  his  own  experience.  The  Roman  Law,  which 
has  made  the  world  one,  was  a  protection  to 
righteousness.  Likewise  the  frequency  of  com- 
munication and  the  ease  and  comparative  safety 
of  travel  were  an  indispensable  gift  to  Christian- 
ity. There  was  no  regular  postal  service  and  no 
railroad,  but  nevertheless  it  was  easier  then  to 
cross  Asia  Minor  or  to  go  from  Smyrna  to  ]\Iar- 
seilles  than  it  has  been  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. Paul  travelled  almost  incessantly,  although 
not  without  some  hardship  and  danger,  for  ten 


52  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

years.  Aquila  and  Priscilla  came  from  Pontus 
on  the  Black  Sea,  went  to  Rome,  then  to  Corinth, 
then  to  Ephesns,  then  probably  back  to  Rome, 
where  they  seem  to  have  resided  when  Paul  wrote 
the  sixteenth  chapter  of  Romans.  An  ancient 
merchant  from  Hierapolis  in  Phrygia  has  perpet- 
uated by  his  epitaph,  which  is  still  preserved,'^  the 
fact  that  he  had  made  the  long  journey  from  his 
home  to  Rome  seventy-two  times.  Not  only  did 
the  good  roads,  the  inns,  the  public  conveyances, 
the  police  protection,  make  it  possible  for  the  great 
missionaries  themselves  to  travel,  and  so  to  carry 
the  Gospel  throughout  the  world;  but,  by  reason 
of  the  public  habit  of  travelling,  any  large  town 
like  Ephesus  or  Corinth  gave  the  missionary  op- 
portunity for  contact  with  persons  from  neighbor- 
ing as  well  as  more  distant  places,  and  from  such 
centres  the  Gospel  spread,  so  to  speak  by  its  own 
expansive  force,  into  the  whole  surrounding 
territory  of  Asia  or  Achaia. 

But  not  only  by  its  material  provisions  and  on 
the  external  side  did  the  Roman  world  contribute 
to  the  missionary  work  of  Christianity.  Equally 
through  the  spirit  of  cosmopolitanism  which  had 
been  created  and  fostered  in  men's  minds  was  the 
fundamental  conception  of  a  world  religion,  which 

iC.  7.  0.   3920. 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  53 

is  a  condition  of  great  missionary  activities,  made 
possible.  The  sense  of  belonging  to  one  great  com- 
munity had  been  aroused  by  the  development  first 
of  a  world-wide  Hellenic  civilization  in  the  Greek 
empire  of  Alexander,  then  by  the  establishment  of 
the  Roman  Empire,  in  which  the  Stoic  ideal  of  a 
universal  commonwealth,  with  all  the  wise  as  citi- 
zens, found  its  visible  counterpart  and  expression. 
In  this  world  it  was  easy  to  frame  the  grand  con- 
ception of  Christianity  as  the  religion  for  the 
world.  Even  the  short  vista  of  future  history 
which  the  theology  of  the  earliest  Christians  per- 
mitted to  open  itself  before  them  was  long  enough 
to  allow  a  man  like  Paul  to  think  of  the  unity  of 
humanity  in  Jesus  Christ  its  head,  in  whose  name 
every  knee  should  bow,  of  things  in  heaven  and 
things  on  earth  and  things  under  the  earth. 

But  the  fourth  and  greatest  advantage  which 
the  state  of  the  civilized  world  gave  to  Christian 
missions,  in  fact  the  essential  condition  on  which 
depended  the  spread  of  Christianity  in  the  world, 
was  the  general  and  wide-spread  sense  of  religious 
need.  Christianity  came  into  a  world  hungering 
and  thirsting  for  spiritual  religion.  The  mythol- 
ogies were  the  play  of  men  of  letters,  not  the  naive 
faith  of  worshippers.  The  official  religion  of  the 
Roman  world  was  the  worship  of  the  Emperor, 


54  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

and  that  was  a  purely  secular  function  of  the  citi- 
zen. Popular  superstition  and  magic,  the  votive 
offerings  and  crowded  rites  of  the  great  temples 
were  deep-rooted  in  the  lives  of  the  multitude ;  but 
side  by  side  with  this,  philosophy  had  made  moral 
teaching  popular,  the  mysteries  had  directed  men's 
thoughts  to  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  oriental 
religions  of  Isis  and  Mithras  and  the  rest  had 
stimulated  the  taste  for  novelty  and  the  desire  for 
a  spiritual  union  with  God.  The  world  was  in  a 
ferment,  men  knew  that  they  were  sinners,  they 
had  come  to  distrust  ritual  and  sacrifice,  they 
were  looking  within  and  upward,  and  what  Juda- 
ism had  partly  given  them  Christianity  offered 
with  completeness.  We  are  not  to  think  of  these 
Christian  teachers  as  bringing  religion  to  a  world 
devoid  of  it.  Without  Christianity  there  would 
have  been  a  powerful  development  of  spiritual 
religion.  Christianity  took,  moulded,  guided,  and 
was  itself  affected  by  the  forces  which  it  found 
already  working  in  human  life. 

Into  this  world  came  the  Christian  missionaries. 
In  Palestine,  where  we  know  but  little  of  the  de- 
tails of  the  work,  we  are  led  to  think  of  evangeli- 
zation by  quiet  talk  in  homes  and  villages.  In  the 
outside  world  the  method  was  different,  at  least  in 
part.     There  the  work  was  carried  on  partly  by 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  55 

men  who  gave  up  their  whole  lives  to  the  calling, 
and  were  known  as  apostles,  partly  by  persons  not 
so  called.  Of  the  apostles  we  know  most  about 
Paul,  but  side  by  side  with  him  were  others  bear- 
ing the  same  title,  Peter, Barnabas,  and  many  more, 
for  the  original  use  of  the  term  did  not  limit  it,  as 
did  later  usage,  to  the  twelve  immediate  disciples 
of  Jesus  Christ.  These  apostles  and  their  fellow- 
workers  laid  the  foundation.  The  most  successful 
mode  of  missionary  work  seems  to  have  been  that 
systematically  followed  by  Paul.  He  went  uni- 
formly to  the  important  centres  of  commercial 
life,  generally  places  where  there  were  Jews.  In 
such  a  place  he  would  use  the  opportunity  afforded 
by  the  synagogue  to  address  the  congregation  of 
Jews  and  half-judaized  gentiles  there  gathered. 
Out  of  that  congregation  a  group  of  persons,  at- 
tracted, held,  and  established  in  faith  in  Christ, 
formed  the  beginning  of  a  church.  They  were 
from  the  gentile  side,  but  here  and  there  among 
them  a  Jew  appeared.  It  speedily  became  necessary 
for  them  to  separate  themselves  from  their  syna- 
gogue, and  a  Christian  conventicle  provided  a  cen- 
tre of  the  new  life,  and  a  place  for  mutual  edifica- 
tion and  for  influence  on  the  people  of  the  town. 
The  active  life  of  a  Greek  city  brought  many  into 
contact  with  such  an  enterprise.    From  the  pro- 


56  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

vincial  capital  or  the  busy  market-town  the  re- 
ligion spread  to  the  surrounding  villages  and 
province,  and  the  method  was  plainly  justified  by 
its  results. 

What  was  the  message  which  these  apostles 
brought,  which  was  repeated  by  those  who  heard 
and  which  found  so  surprising  response  in  the 
hearts  of  thousands  ?  Three  speeches  in  the  Book 
of  Acts  tell  what  a  writer  toward  the  end  of  the 
first  century  believed  to  be  the  appropriate  mode 
of  address  to  three  varying  types  of  audience  at 
Antioch  of  Pisidia,  at  Lystra,  at  Athens.  These 
speeches  attributed  to  Paul  are  carefully  adapted 
to  the  needs  of  these  several  occasions,  and  are 
highly  instructive,  whether  they  came  from  Paul 
or  not.  To  the  Jews  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy 
in  Christ  had  been  from  the  first  the  most  effective 
approach,  and  likewise  for  those  gentiles  v^^hom  the 
preacher  met  in  the  synagogue  the  argument  that 
in  Christianity  is  to  be  found  the  flowering  of  Ju- 
daism must  have  had  weight.  But  for  gentiles  the 
chief  means  of  persuasion  must  always  have  been 
the  positive  contents  of  Christianity;  and  such 
speeches  as  those  of  Paul  at  Lystra  and  Athens 
and  in  particular  a  verse  from  I  Thessalonians 
give  us  a  trustworthy  notion  of  what  were  the 
aspects  of  Christian  truth  that  Paul  emphasized 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  57 

in  a  Greek  city.  ''They  themselves,"  he  says, 
''report  concerning  us  what  manner  of  entering 
in  we  had  unto  you ;  and  how  ye  turned  unto  God 
from  idols,  to  serve  a  living  and  true  God,  and  to 
wait  for  his  Son  from  heaven,  whom  he  raised 
from  the  dead,  even  Jesus,  who  delivereth  us  from 
the  wrath  to  come. ' '  ^  Monotheism,  the  service  of 
the  living  and  true  God  instead  of  idols ;  the  Judg- 
ment, with  the  whole  system  of  moral  require- 
ments which  it  implied;  Jesus  Christ  raised  from 
the  dead  to  be  the  Lord  in  heaven,  through  faith  in 
whom  sin  is  forgiven  and  punishment  averted;— 
these  are  the  ideas  which  the  Christian  apostles 
found  effective. 

But  how  were  these  assertions  proved  ?  Not  by 
arguments  of  philosophy,  nor  by  a  logic  building 
laboriously  on  accepted  premises ;  that  would  have 
been,  as  Paul  says,  to  rely  on  persuasive  words  of 
v/isdom.  A  strong  impression  was  doubtless  made 
by  the  report  of  the  Resurrection  appearances, 
given  by  men  who  had  themselves  been  vouchsafed 
those  strange  experiences,  but  the  main  process  of 
conviction  and  conversion  was  not  one  of  argu- 
ment and  proof  to  the  intellect,  but  "in  demon- 
stration of  the  Spirit  and  of  power."  That  is  to 
say,  Christianity  did  not  present  itself  primarily 

» I  Thess.  I.  9. 


58  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

as  a  system  of  thought,  but  as  a  new,  free  life. 
Those  to  whom  the  privilege  was  offered  could  not, 
did  not  wish  to,  disprove  the  ideas  on  which  this 
life  rested.     They  were  attracted  by  them;  and 
they  accepted  the  help  which  these  ideas  and  this 
life  gave.   Many  influences  must  have  combined  to 
touch  one  and  another,— the  admirable  traits  of 
character    of    the    missionaries,    the    evidences, 
partly,  as  we  shall  see,  physical,  of  what  was  be- 
lieved to  be  divine  power  present  with  the  Chris- 
tians, the  apparent  fulfilment  of  prophecy,  the 
interest  and  compelling  power  of  the  Gospel  story 
of  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.    Nearly 
all  the  elements  of  missionary  success  which  we 
find  later  must  have  been  present  from  the  first. 
That  the  arguments  should  all  seem  to  our  critical 
view  to  be  sound  was  not  necessary.    Arguments 
are  always  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  ad  hominem, 
and  have  their  effect  precisely  through  partaking 
in  the  limitations  of  time  and  place.     That  the 
fundamental  truth  presented  was  true,  that  the 
life  offered  to  eager  men  was  real,  that  the  argu- 
ments and  commendations  were  honest,  was  all 
that  was  essential.     If  they  still  appeal  to  us,  so 
much  the  better. 

Once  established  by  the  missionaries,  the  work 
was  carried  on  by  the  young  churches  themselves, 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  59 

standing  ''as  lights  in  the  world,  holding  forth 
the  word  of  life. ' '  Every  body  of  Christians  was 
a  missionary  church.  Every  assembly  should  ex- 
pect and  hope  to  be  visited  by  the  unbelieving  out- 
sider, who,  when  he  hears  the  inspired  Christian 
prophets  ''is  judged,  .  .  the  secrets  of  his 
heart  are  made  manifest ;  and  so  he  will  fall  down 
on  his  face  and  worship  God,  declaring  that  God 
is  among  you  indeed. ' '  ^  See  how  anxiously  Paul 
is  concerned  for  just  those  qualities  in  his 
churches  which  are  of  critical  importance  to  their 
missionary  work.  He  exhorts  not  only  to  purity 
of  life  but  also  to  those  virtues  of  unity  in  thought 
and  feeling,  the  lack  of  which  has  always,  as  in 
our  own  time,  grievously  hindered  the  progress  of 
the  Gospel.  Be,  he  says,  "of  one  accord,  of  one 
mind,  doing  nothing  through  faction";  "He  that 
herein  serveth  Christ  is  well-pleasing  to  God,  and 
approved  of  men.  So  then  let  us  follow  after 
things  which  make  for  peace." 

Some  of  the  aspects  of  a  Christian  church  in  the 
first  century  which  made  it  a  starting  point  of  fur- 
ther missionary  influence  will  come  before  us  in  a 
later  chapter.  The  motives  to  missionary  activity 
among  these  new  gentile  converts  remained  per- 
manently strong.     The  commands   of  the  Lord 

1 1  Cor.  xiv.  23ff. 


60  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

were  still  repeated  from  mouth  to  mouth,  the  sense 
of  high  privilege  and  the  desire  to  bring  that 
privilege  to  friends  and  neighbors  continued,  the 
competition  of  religions  in  the  seething  human 
life  of  the  first  century  was  ever  stimulating. 
And  in  the  place  of  the  Jew's  loyal  and  passionate 
hope  for  the  salvation  of  his  nation,  now  entered 
the  no  less  inspiring  ideal  of  a  world-embracing 
religion,  matching  the  world-wide  imperial  civili- 
zation in  which  the  men  of  that  day  were  proud  to 
have  a  share. 

Of  the  first  missionary  journey  outside  of  Syria 
I  have  spoken  above.  The  further  progress  of 
Christian  missions  in  the  Roman  Empire  can  be 
read  in  the  ever  fascinating  pages  of  the  Book  of 
Acts.  Beyond  what  is  there  communicated  we 
know  but  little,  and  the  story  need  not  here  be 
repeated.  It  is,  however,  instructive  to  ask  what 
were  the  results  of  the  missionary  operations  of 
the  Christian  Church  for  the  two  generations  end- 
ing with  the  year  100?  Of  the  geographical  ex- 
tension of  Christianity  we  have  considerable, 
though  incomplete,  knowledge.  In  Palestine  there 
were  in  the  year  100  many  Christians,  although 
the  number  was  perhaps  not  rapidly  increasing. 
East  of  the  Jordan,  the  Christians  of  Jerusalem, 
who  had  fled  before  the  capture  of  the  city  by 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  61 

Titus  in  70  a.  d.,  had  taken  up  their  abode  at 
Pella;  there  had  been,  and  doubtless  were  still, 
Christians  at  Damascus,  and  we  may  assume  that 
there  were  other  groups  of  Christians  in  that 
region.  Of  the  farthest  East  we  know  nothing.  In 
northern  Syria  Antioch  was  a  great  centre  of 
Christian  activity  and  other  churches  existed. 
Phoenicia  had  churches.  So  had  Cilicia,  which 
belongs  with  Syria.  In  most  of  the  provinces  of 
Asia  Minor  there  were  flourishing  churches. 
About  fifteen  of  the  chief  towns  are  known  to  us 
by  name  as  containing  Christians,  and  these  are 
evidently  but  a  small  part  of  the  total.  Macedonia 
and  Achaia,  as  far  as  Corinth,  contained  impor- 
tant churches.  Probably  Crete  and  Epirus  should 
be  added  to  the  list.  In  Italy  there  had  long  been 
Christians  at  Puteoli,  while  at  Rome  the  move- 
ment was  strong.  There  may  have  been  believers 
in  Spain,  there  must  have  been  such,  although  we 
have  scarcely  any  direct  knowledge,  in  Alex- 
andria. A  look  at  the  map  will  show  how  wide 
this  distribution  is  in  all  the  lands  bordering  the 
Mediterranean  Sea. 

About  the  actual  numbers  of  Christians  we  can 
say  less.  We  have  but  few  figures  of  any  sort, 
and  ancient  statistics  in  general  are  reputed  of 
but  little  value.    According  to  the  Book  of  Acts 


62  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

there  were  about  the  year  60  many  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  Christians  among  the  Jews  of  Palestine. 
In  Rome  Tacitus  says  that  a  vast  multitude,  multi- 
tudo  ingens,  of  Christians  were  apprehended  and 
punished  under  Nero.  The  situation  depicted  by 
Pliny  in  his  letter  to  Trajan  from  Bithjniia  about 
the  year  112,  is  near  enough  to  our  period  for  us 
to  refer  to  its  impressive  picture  of  the  influence 
of  Christianity  not  only  in  towns  but  in  villages 
and  in  the  country.  The  people  had  turned  to 
the  new  faith  to  such  a  degree  that  the  temples 
were  almost  deserted,  in  many  cases  the  sacred 
rites  had  for  a  long  time  been  interrupted,  and  so 
few  purchasers  of  animals  for  sacrifice  appeared 
that  the  grazing  industry,  which  provided  these 
victims,  was  in  distress. 

If  a  comparison  is  desired,  it  is  not  unfair  to 
compare  the  Christian  world  in  the  year  100  with 
the  state  of  Japan,  China,  and  India  to-day.  The 
period  of  missionary  work  had  been  not  far  from 
the  same,  and  there  was  a  permeation  of  the 
various  provinces,  here  more,  there  less,  not  unlike 
in  its  various  degrees  to  the  various  degrees  in 
which  at  present  Christianity  has  established  itself 
in  those  countries  of  the  Par  East.  The  compari- 
son is  but  a  rough  one,  but  it  may  be  helpful.  It 
should  be  said,  however,  that  to  an  impartial  ob- 


THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  63 

server  of  the  year  100  the  prospects  of  Christian- 
ity would  probably  have  seemed  distinctly  less 
good  than  they  do  to-day  in  Japan  or  even  in 
China  or  India. 

Let  us  turn  again  to  the  starting-point.  One 
hundred  and  twenty  persons,  we  are  told,  assem- 
bled themselves  in  Jerusalem  to  wait  there  for  the 
coming  of  the  Lord  in  glory,— faithful  Jews  who 
believed  that  the  promise  of  God  to  their  nation 
was  now  at  last  in  promise  of  fulfilment.  Seventy 
years  later  perhaps  every  one  of  those  earliest 
disciples  is  dead;  but  the  Jewish  sect  which  they 
then  formed  has  become  a  brotherhood  of  men  of 
all  classes  spread  through  the  world.  Out  of  a 
simple  addition  to  Jewish  doctrine  and  the  im- 
pulse of  a  new  kind  of  life  has  grown  the  begin- 
ning of  a  system  of  theology.  There  have  been 
great  leaders,  hard  problems,  acute  situations, 
earnest  thought,  divergent  views.  The  problems 
have  not  all  appeared,  much  less  been  solved.  The 
development  does  not  begin  to  be  complete  or  even 
mature  in  any  direction.  But  good  work  has  been 
done,  and  the  first  century  and  the  apostolic  age 
come  to  a  close  with  their  task  completed.  It  was 
required  of  this  age  that  it  should  by  missions 
carry  Christianity  out  into  the  great  world,  and 
that  it  should  so  conceive  and  hold  and  develop 


64  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

Christian  truth  that  this  should  be  possible.  To 
the  changes  which  befell  Christianity,  and  how 
they  occurred,  to  the  story  of  its  leaders  and  its 
inner  strains,  its  thought  and  its  outer  form,  we 
must  now  turn. 


Ill 

JEWISH   CHRISTIANITY  AND   ITS   FATE 

When  we  pass  from  the  first  three  Gospels  to 
the  speeches  of  the  Book  of  Acts  or  the  epistles  of 
Paul,  we  feel  at  once  a  great  change.  And  the 
change  is  not  due  to  the  fact  that  the  writer  of 
Acts  was  a  gentile  or  that  Paul  presents  a  compar- 
atively late  stage  in  the  rapid  development  of  the 
apostolic  church.  If  we  had  literature  from  the 
earliest  J3wish  Christians  it  would  stand  with 
Paul,  not  with  the  Gospels.  The  contrast,  which  is 
so  familiar  that  it  does  not  need  to  be  illustrated, 
fairly  exemplifies  in  its  general  impression,  though 
it  does  not  in  detail,  the  first  great  transition  of 
which  I  have  already  spoken,  the  transition  which 
created  Jewish  Christianity. 

For  three  years  the  Twelve  and  the  other  con- 
stant companions  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  had  lived 
in  familiar,  though  reverent,  daily  intercourse 
with  their  Teacher.  They  had  joined  themselves 
to  him  like  the  pupils  of  a  rabbi,  they  had  grad- 
ually come  to  think  that  he  was  the  promised 

65 


66  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

Messiah.  They  had  heard  from  him  and  treasured 
in  their  memory  countless  sayings  concerning  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  spoken  both  for  encouragement 
to  steadfastness  and  incitement  to  effort.  They 
had  been  taught  wherein  lay  the  essence  of  the 
Law,  and  how  to  aim  at  a  righteousness  exceeding 
that  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees.  They  had  heard 
with  wondering  and  timid  incredulity  the  an- 
nouncement that  the  Son  of  Man,  the  Christ,  must 
die  in  order  to  fulfill  the  Messiah 's  work,  and  that 
only  by  his  death  could  the  triumph  of  his  cause 
and  God's  kingdom  come.  The  substance  of  the 
message  which  they  were  commissioned  to  pro- 
claim was,  Repent,  for  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  at 
hand.  How  God  would  bring  it  in,  or  when,  they 
knew  not.  More  than  all  else  they  had  observed 
the  emphasis  which  Jesus  put  on  the  conception 
of  God  as  his  and  all  men's  Father;  and  they  had 
seen  with  their  own  eyes  a  life  in  which  that  con- 
ception had  its  perfect  embodiment  and  realiza- 
tion. 

There  was  here  no  new  system  of  theological 
thought,  but  only  the  sowing  of  many  pregnant 
seeds.  There  was  no  creation  of  a  formal  and  in- 
clusive society  to  carry  on  the  same  work,  but  only 
the  transformation  of  the  lives  of  a  few  men  and 
women,  to  whom  it  could  be  left  to  work  out  any 


JEAVISH  CHRISTIANITY  67 

organization  and  theology  to  which  their  trans- 
formed lives  might  lead.  The  supreme  and  dar- 
ing trust  of  Jesus  Christ  in  God  is  nowhere  better 
seen  than  in  the  complete  absence  of  any  careful 
programme  by  which  his  followers  could  be  guided 
in  the  outward  forms  of  their  common  life.  His 
trust  has  given  his  Church  toil  and  care,  but  also 
freedom;  it  has  saved  it  blood,  misery,  and  per- 
manent tyranny. 

To  this  group  of  persons,  loosely  organized,  ex- 
ternally unprepared  to  be  a  Church,  but  inwardly 
profoundly  stirred,  came  the  great  catastrophe. 
In  one  exciting  week  almost  every  circumstance  of 
their  life  was  altered.  They  found  themselves 
fugitives,  their  own  lives  perhaps  in  danger,  their 
Messiah  dead.  Instead  of  the  firm  Will  and  clear 
Vision  on  which  they  had  relied,  trusting  him  to 
see  the  path  before  them,  they  had  but  a  memory 
of  his  sayings. 

The  recovery  from  the  shock  came  through  the 
resurrection  appearances  of  Christ.  The  mystery 
of  these  experiences  historical  criticism  is  not 
likely  ever  to  penetrate  fully.  There  can,  how- 
ever, be  no  doubt  that  the  first  disciples  passed 
through  real  experiences  which  they  believed  to  be 
the  appearance  to  them  of  the  crucified  and  risen 
Christ.    This  is  demonstrated  by  the  statement  of 


68  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

Paul,  who  included  his  own  vision  with  these  ap- 
pearances, and  by  the  unbroken  agreement  of  the 
earliest  Christians  in  this  faith.  There  were  real 
events,  and  their  effect  was  momentous.  It  is  not 
at  all  surprising,  in  view  of  the  demoralized  ex- 
citement of  all  the  disciples  in  those  days  and  of 
the  mysterious  nature  of  the  experiences  them- 
selves, that  the  accounts,  even  the  oldest,  should 
vary  widely  from  one  another,  and  that  it  should 
be  impossible  for  us  to  frame  a  complete  or  satis- 
factory narrative  from  the  several  statements  of 
the  evangelists  and  of  Paul. 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  disciples  re- 
turned to  Galilee  immediately  after  the  Crucifix- 
ion. Three  courses  were  there  open  to  them.  They 
could  give  up  their  common  undertaking,  return 
to  work  at  their  homes  as  fishermen,  live  as  well  as 
they  could  in  the  spirit  of  Jesus'  teaching  about 
love  and  righteousness,  and  remember  as  a  past 
dream  their  old  hope  that  this  "was  he  who  should 
redeem  Israel."  From  any  such  purpose  as  this, 
which  would  have  brought  some  good  men  into 
several  villages  of  Galilee,  but  would  have  put  an 
end  to  the  work  of  Jesus  Christ  on  earth,  they 
were  deterred  by  the  call  of  the  appearances, 
which  convinced  them  that  Jesus  had  risen  to 
heaven  and  should  come  again.     The  presupposi- 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY  69 

tions  necessary  for  this  faith  lay  in  one  of  the 
previously  existing  Jewish  conceptions  of  the 
Messiah.  He  had  sometimes  been  pictured  not  as 
an  earthly  king  but  as  a  being  coming  with  the 
clouds  of  heaven,  in  form  like  unto  a  Son  of  Man 
but  destined  to  share  in  God's  judgment  of  the 
world.  Even  with  this  conviction,  however,  which 
thus  attached  itself  to  those  deeply-rooted  ideas, 
two  courses  were  still  open  to  them.  They  might 
retire  together  to  some  sheltered  spot,  there  culti- 
vate the  religious  life  apart  from  the  dangers  and 
temptations  of  the  world,  and  so  wait,  determined 
that  somewhere  the  Son  of  Man  at  his  coming 
should  find  faith  on  the  earth.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  bolder  course  was  still  possible.  They  could 
return  to  Jerusalem,  and,  in  full  light  of  day,  at 
that  centre  of  Jewish  hopes,  where  must  ever  be 
the  capital  of  God's  kingdom  on  earth,  work  to 
prepare  for  the  return  of  the  Lord  in  glory.  The 
idea  was  not  unknown  among  the  Jews  that  the 
final  resurrection  would  take  place  at  Jerusalem, 
the  souls  of  the  faithful  being  transported  thither 
from  the  ends  of  the  earth.  To  Jerusalem  w-ere 
continually  coming  numbers  of  devout  Jews  from 
the  Dispersion  to  end  their  days  in  the  Holy  City. 
The  precise  form  which  the  impulse  took  and  the 
particular  shade  of  motive  which  led  Peter  and 


70  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

the  rest  to  return  to  Jerusalem  we  do  not  know. 
The  general  cause  we  can  see,  and  it  may  even  be 
that  the  desire  as  it  lay  in  their  own  minds  was 
inarticulate  though  compelling. 

It  is  already  apparent  that  in  this  whole  step  the 
passage  is  already  made  from  the  evangelical  to 
the  apostolic  period.  The  step  itself  implies,  it 
should  be  noted,  as  already  in  existence  the  firm 
belief  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  the  Messiah. 
Without  that  it  would  have  been  meaningless  and, 
indeed,  impossible.  But  that  belief  had  been 
reached  even  during  the  Galilean  ministry.  The 
difference  now  lay  in  the  conviction  that  these 
followers  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who  was  the  Christ, 
could  look  to  a  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  heaven.  In 
that  perception  all  material  and  temporal  limita- 
tions Avere  removed.  This  faith  with  all  its  priv- 
ileges was  possible  at  all  times,  in  all  places,  for 
any  man.  It  gave  a  new  central  object  to  reli- 
gious thought,  and  it  offered  the  possibility  of  the 
whole  development  of  Christian  theology.  It  has 
often  been  attempted  to  show  that  the  Christian 
Church  gradually  deified  its  human  founder  and 
teacher  after  analogies  to  be  found  in  many  re- 
ligions. That  statement  gives  no  true  notion  of 
the  real  process  of  the  birth  of  Christian  theology. 
It  was  in  the  sudden  agitation  of  those  few  days 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY  71 

in  Galilee,  and  apparently  under  the  lead  of 
Simon  Peter  that  the  decisive  step  was  taken. 
Without  that  step  the  whole  would  have  become 
but  the  happy  dream  of  a  few  months,  now  ended 
by  a  rude  awakening  to  the  light  of  day.  But  the 
momentous  step  once  taken,  Jesus  the  Messiah 
once  believed  on  as  Lord  in  heaven,  and  the 
Church  could  not  stop.  AVhat  followed  was  not 
the  gradual  elevation  of  Jesus  from  humanity  to 
deity ;  it  was  the  gradual  analysis  of  the  problem 
set  once  for  all  at  the  outset,  the  slow  definition 
of  what  was  involved  in  this  indefinite  exaltation 
of  the  Messiah.  The  so-called  logos-christology 
gave  its  aid,  and  at  last  the  acute  Greek  mind 
wrought  out  to  a  logical  issue  the  implication 
of  each  element  in  the  apostolic  conception.  The 
battle  was  fought  in  the  controversies  of  the 
fourth  century,  and  reached  its  ecclesiastical  set- 
tlement in  the  Nicene  Creed,  but  the  problem  was 
fully  set  by  the  fishermen  apostles  when  they 
turned  their  faces  again  toward  Jerusalem.  The 
next  three  centuries  were  only  the  application  of 
philosophy  and  criticism  to  its  solution.  The 
writers  of  the  earliest  Christian  histories  fol- 
lowed a  true  instinct  when  they  represented  the 
Church  as  receiving  its  commission  from  the  risen 
Christ.     AYhether  or  not  any  words  were  then 


72  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

actually  heard,  Avhatever  the  real  character  of 
the  appearances,  it  was  in  truth  by  these  appear- 
ances that  the  body  of  disciples  became  in  any 
proper  sense  a  Church,  a  body  conscious  of  its 
own  independence  because  possessed  of  a  faith 
whereby  it  was  to  conquer  the  world. 

We  have  to  think  of  the  disciples  returning 
to  Jerusalem  as  mainly  occupied  with  the  expecta- 
tion of  the  speedy  coming  back  to  earth  of  their 
Lord.  Of  that  day  and  hour  no  man  knew,  nor 
angel,  neither  the  Son;  but  that  it  should  be 
within  their  own  life-time,  of  that  there  was  no 
doubt.  They  had  been  told  with  insistent  repeti- 
tion to  watch  and  be  alert  for  the  coming  of 
the  Master.  They  were  the  Messiah's  People, 
they  must  be  ready  to  take  their  rightful  place, 
the  Twelve  judging  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel, 
and  each  in  his  lot,  when  the  great  and  notable 
Day  of  the  Lord  should  come. 

We  shall  not  err  in  picturing  to  ourselves  the 
thought  of  these  disciples  as  perfectly  naive  and 
realistic.  This  is  the  impression  carefully  in- 
stilled by  the  Gospels  and  the  Book  of  Acts,  and 
it  is  wholly  in  accord  with  all  that  we  know  or 
can  suppose.  Their  intellectual  horizon  Avas 
limited,  their  modes  and  instruments  of  thought 
crude,  but  they  carried  in  these  earthen  vessels 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY  73 

a  precious  treasure,  and  were  worthy  to  be  the 
founders  of  the  Christian  Church.  For  they  pos- 
sessed two  things  that  the  world  did  not  have: 
first,  the  new  spiritual  life,  led  in  humble  depend- 
ence on  God  as  Father,  into  which  Jesus  had 
brought  them,  and  which  they  had  seen  in  him 
and  received  from  him ;  and  secondly,  the  sublime 
and  inspiring  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  by  which  they 
lived,  and  by  which  they  knew  themselves  to 
be  the  heirs  of  the  ages.  Herein  they  held  the 
power  to  perpetuate  Christianity  so  long  as  faith 
and  hope  should  abide;  herein  was  capacity  for 
an  endless  continuity  through  all  the  changing 
forms  which  the  unfolding  course  of  Christian 
history  was  destined  to  produce. 

The  greatest  crisis  of  all  Christian  history  had 
now  been  passed,  and  the  outcome  was  a  small 
body  of  Jewish  separatists,  at  first  hardly  over  one 
hundred  in  number,  dwelling  as  a  sort  of 
community  in  Jerusalem.  Such  sects  were  not 
unkno^^Ti  in  Judaism.  The  Essenes  were  such 
a  one,  although  not  at  Jerusalem.  The  Pharisees, 
too,  were  just  such  a  sect  within  Judaism.  These 
last  were,  indeed,  in  public  influence  and  im- 
portance utterly  unlike  the  weak  and  humble 
Christian  Church,  but  in  the  Christians'  claim 
that  they  alone  truly  represented  the  Israel  of 


74  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

God  we  have  something  much  like  the  attitude 
of  the  powerful  Pharisaic  sect.  From  the  point 
of  view  of  the  Jewish  civil  authorities  there  was 
doubtless  reason  enough  to  deem  this  new  sect  dan- 
gerous, but  in  the  \dew  of  the  Christians  them- 
selves they  were  full  members  of  the  common- 
wealth of  Israel,  rightfully  present  in  their  own 
Holy  City,  and  naturally  observing  aU  the  cus- 
toms of  pious  Israelites.  Yet  even  as  a  sect  within 
Judaism  they  had  a  firm  and  sufficient  principle 
of  independent  organic  life,  and  their  conscious- 
ness of  their  own  permanent  distinction  from  the 
unbelieving  Jews  must  have  grown  with  every  de- 
velopment of  their  circumstances. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  life  and  thought  of  these 
primitive  Christians — primitive  we  may  well  think 
in  more  than  one  sense— is  very  limited.  What 
we  have  comes  partly  from  inferences  as  to  what 
must  have  been  the  case  in  the  given  circum- 
stances; partly  from  the  traditions  recorded  in 
Acts,  which  are  useful  but  less  ample  than  they 
might  at  first  appear;  partly  from  hints  in  the 
epistles  of  Paul  and  in  the  Gospels.  The  evi- 
dence contained  in  the  Gospels,  although  difficult 
to  elicit,  is  important.  It  is  to  be  found  by  ob- 
serving what  subjects  most  interested  the  Chris- 
tians  among  whom  these  memories   of  the   life 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY  75 

and  teachings  of  Jesus  were  preserved  and  first 
formulated.  An  example  of  this  method  has  al- 
ready been  given  in  the  use  of  the  Missionary 
Discourse  as  recorded  by  Matthew.  Another  exam- 
ple is  the  marked  emphasis  seen  in  the  Gospels  on 
the  idea  of  the  speedy  Second  Coming  of  Christ. 
This  was  evidently  a  main  subject  of  reflec- 
tion in  the  minds  of  those  to  whom  we  owe  the 
tradition.  And  so  in  general  by  the  choice  they 
made  of  sayings  to  remember  and  transmit  they 
put  of  necessity  their  own  stamp  on  the  Gospel 
tradition.  And  so  in  general  by  the  choice  they 
of  themselves  and  their  own  thinking. 

With  regard  to  the  historical  value  of  the 
earlier  chapters  of  Acts  we  must  recognize  that, 
as  we  have  seen,  these  do  not  come  to  us  directly 
from  a  member  of  the  primitive  Jewish  com- 
mxunity.  The  result  of  criticism,  the  methods  of 
which  have  been  somewhat  described  in  a  pre- 
vious chapter,  is  to  give  a  fair  degree  of  con- 
fidence in  the  picture  of  the  general  development 
of  events,  while  the  detail  seems  in  many  cases 
to  be  merely  a  part  of  the  telling  of  the  story. 
The  speeches  of  Peter  which  constitute  a  large 
part  of  these  chapters  would  be  a  great  aid  in  our 
task  if  we  could  be  sure  that  they  are  more  than 
the  free  composition  of  the  writer  of  the  book. 


76  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

Unfortunately  their  style,  their  lack  of  the  in- 
imitable elements  which  could  not  have  been  the 
free  invention  of  the  author,  their  apparent  pur- 
pose to  present  to  the  readers  an  agreeably  varied 
(although  curiously  uniform)  account  of  early 
Christian  ideas,  their  close  resemblance  to  the 
speech  of  Stephen  and  the  first  and  longest  speech 
of  Paul  (that  at  Antioch)— all  these  considera- 
tions make  it  more  probable  that  the  writer  is  here 
only  following  the  general  custom  of  ancient 
historians,  made  most  famous  by  Thucydides,  and 
giving  us  as  a  literary  decoration  of  his  narra- 
tive what  Peter  might  naturally  be  supposed  to 
have  said.  They  cannot  be  used  with  any  con- 
fidence as  presenting  distinctive  ideas  of  Peter. 
And  yet  the  author  has  shown  great  skill  and, 
dramatic  sympathy  in  their  composition,  and  in 
view  of  what  we  otherwise  know,  we  may  believe 
that  these  speeches  give  us  in  the  main  a  not  un- 
fair notion  of  what  Jewish  Christians  thought  and 
preached.  For  the  view  that  the  speech  of  Stephen 
is  based  upon  actual  recollection  communicated 
to  our  author,  more  can  be  said.  But  it  shows 
throughout  our  author's  literary  style,  and  its 
present  form  is  his.  For  a  striking  contrast  to 
this  whole  type  of  speeches  we  have  but  to  turn 
to  the  twentieth  chapter  of  Acts  and  read  the 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY  77 

speech  of  Paul  to  the  elders  at  Miletus.  By  many 
marks  of  individuality  and  originality  it  arrests 
attention  as  the  record  of  what  someone,  per- 
haps our  author  himself,  actually  heard  on  that 
occasion. 

Upon  the  questions  which  arise  about  the  de- 
tails of  the  events  with  which  the  story  in  Acts 
begins  we  shall  not  linger.  That  a  choice  was 
made  to  fill  the  place  of  the  traitor  Judas  in 
the  board  of  twelve  apostolic  dignitaries  is  con- 
firmed both  by  the  fact  that  the  names  mentioned 
are  otherwise  unknown  to  us,  and  by  Paul 's  refer- 
ences to  ''the  Twelve"  a  few  years  later.  More 
important  than  this  event  is  the  day  of  Pentecost. 
Exactly  what  took  place  on  that  day  we  cannot 
know,  for  the  account  as  given  us  in  Acts  is 
probably  an  embellished  form  of  the  recollec- 
tion of  the  Church.  This  account,  however,  could 
hardly  have  arisen  at  all  unless  there  had  been  a 
momentous  occasion,  when  under  great  spiritual 
excitement  the  Christians  at  Jerusalem  became 
convinced  that  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
foretold  by  Joel  and  perhaps  by  John  the  Baptist, 
the  mark  of  the  new  era,  had  come  to  pass. 
Through  the  experiences  of  that  day  the  great 
change  wrought  by  the  resurrection  appearances 
seems  to  have  been  confirmed,  and  from  that  day 


78  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

onward  the  Church  was  able  to  stand  forth  with 
the  bold  confidence  of  an  independent  body.  It 
has  been  suggested  by  some,  and  not  without 
plausibility,  that  these  experiences  of  the  Day 
of  Pentecost  were  the  same  which  the  Gospel 
of  John  has  connected  with  the  appearance  of 
the  risen  Lord  to  the  disciples  on  the  very  Sun- 
day of  the  Resurrection. 

When  therefore  it  was  evening,  on  that  day,  the 
first  day  of  the  week,  and  when  the  doors  were 
shut  where  the  disciples  were,  for  fear  of  the  Jews, 
Jesus  came  and  stood  in  the  midst  and  saith  unto 
them,  Peace  be  unto  you.  And  when  he  had  said 
this,  he  showed  unto  them  his  hands  and  his  side. 
The  disciples  therefore  were  glad,  when  they  saw 
the  Lord.  Jesus  therefore  said  to  them  again. 
Peace  he  unto  you:  as  the  Father  hath  sent  me, 
even  so  send  I  you.  And  when  he  had  said  this, 
he  breathed  on  them,  and  saith  unto  them.  Re- 
ceive ye  the  Holy  Spirit:  whose  soever  sins  ye 
forgive,  they  are  forgiven  unto  them;  whose  soever 
sins  ye  retain,  they  are  retained.^ 
In  this  symbolic  account,  as  in  Acts,  the  dis- 
ciples are  endued  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  so 
empowered  are  sent  forth  into  the  world. 

Of  the  life  of  these  earliest  Christians  after 

iJohn  XX.  19-23. 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY  79 

the  Day  of  Pentecost  the  Book  of  Acts  gives 
us  the  following  description,  a  text  to  which  the 
well-known  incidents  appended  in  Acts  provide 
striking  and  instructive  illustrations. 

And  they  continued  stedfastly  in  the  apostles' 
teaching  and  fellowship,  in  the  breaking  of  bread 
and  the  prayers. 

And  fear  came  upon  every  soul:  and  many  won- 
ders and  signs  were  done  through  the  apostles. 
And  all  that  believed  were  together,  and  had  all 
things  common;  and  they  sold  their  possessions 
and  goods,  and  parted  them  to  all,  according  as 
any  man  had  need.  And  day  by  day,  continuing 
stedfastly  with  one  accord  in  the  temple,  and 
breaking  bread  at  home,  they  took  their  food 
with  gladness  and  singleness  of  heart,  praising 
God,  and  having  favor  with  all  the  people.  And 
the  Lord  added  to  them  day  by  day  those  that 
were  saved.^ 

This  description  is  confirmed  by  all  that  we 
know  and  by  what  we  can  infer  or  suppose.  The 
Christians  had  come  to  Jerusalem  to  wait  for 
the  coming  of  the  Lord  from  heaven.  Hence  they 
mainly  devoted  themselves  not  to  the  ordinary 
occupations  of  life,  buying  and  selling,  marrying 

1  Acts  ii.  42-47. 


80  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

and  giving  in  marriage,  but,  as  was  natural,  to 
practices  of  the  religious  life,  prayer,  common 
meals,  reflection,  conference,  discussion,  and,  we 
may  add,  the  study  of  the  Scriptures,  for  which 
a  new  Christian  interpretation  was  speedily  found. 
All  these  were  the  works  of  Jewish  piety,  and 
that  these  Christians  were  faithful  and  conscien- 
tious observers  of  the  Jewish  Law  is  attested  by 
all  our  sources.  In  short,  they  lived  as  pious 
separatists  of  every  age  have  done.  The  more 
well-to-do  contributed  constantly  for  the  needs 
of  the  poorer,  but  there  is  abundant  reason  to 
believe  that  that  was  due  to  a  generous  and  en- 
thusiastic charity,  and  not  to  any  fundamental 
principle  of  communistic  organization.  Works  of 
healing,  performed  in  the  name  of  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth and  thus  carrying  on  his  ministry  of  heal- 
ing, are  reported  to  us,  and  we  need  not  doubt 
that  then,  as  at  other  times  since  in  the  world's 
history,  such  cures  took  place.  That  the  mem- 
bers of  the  earliest  Church  included  some  only 
half-worthy  persons  is  expressly  stated.  In  one 
such  case,  whatever  we  may  think  of  possible 
legendary  growth  in  details,  the  startling  death 
of  the  person  or  persons  involved  was  believed 
to  be  God's  direct  punishment  for  signal  mean- 
ness, and  the  incident  was  long  remembered.     It 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY  81 

is  full  of  instruction  for  us  to  know  that  besides 
a  Barnabas  and  a  Stephen  the  earliest  Church  had 
its  Ananias  and  Sapphira. 

In  their  ideas  these  good  people  were  funda- 
mentally Jews,  and  Jews  of  a  popular,  semi-phar- 
isaic,  messianistic  t}^e.  They  had  been  trained, 
however,  by  Jesus  Christ  to  emphasize  the  reali- 
ties of  Jewish  thought  and  practice,  and  they 
preserved  in  memory  some  sayings  of  their  Mas- 
ter which  had  a  notably  free  tendency  with  re- 
gard to  Jewish  legal  prescriptions.  But  we  have 
no  reason  to  think  that  they  had  at  all  changed 
their  own  personal  habits  from  Jewish  customary 
usage.  To  Jewish  theology,  as  we  have  seen, 
they  must,  from  the  first,  have  added  the  belief 
that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  the  Messiah,  that  he 
had  ascended  to  heaven,  and  would  come  again 
in  glory.  Beyond  this  their  reflection  had  at 
least  occupied  itself  with  the  prophecies  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  with  what  was  ever  to  the 
Jews  a  stumbling-block,  the  pressing  problem 
given  by  the  crucifixion.  Paul  says  in  I  Corin- 
thians, "I  delivered  unto  you  first  of  all  that 
which  also  I  received:  that  Christ  died  for  our 
siiis  according  to  the  Scriptures."^  It  is  evi- 
dent that  these   earliest  believers  quickly  came 

1 1  Cor.  XV.  3. 


82  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

to  recognize  that  the  amazing  and  disconcerting 
fact  of  the  Messiah's  death  could  be  adequately- 
accounted  for  only  by  understanding  it  as  the 
very  means  whereby  his  ministry  was  performed 
and  the  ransom  for  many  paid.  The  Jewish 
Christians  apparently  conceived  of  the  Cross  as 
providing  a  means  of  salvation  supplementary 
to  the  Law,  the  works  of  which,  although  required 
of  all,  were  inadequate  to  secure  the  desired  end. 
As  to  the  other  subjects  of  their  thought  besides 
the  messiahship  of  Jesus,  the  fulfilment  of  proph- 
ecy, and  the  meaning  of  the  crucifixion,  it  was 
doubtless  largely  occupied  with  the  precepts  and 
parables  preserved  for  us  in  the  first  three  Gos- 
pels and  with  the  questions  raised  in  apologetic 
discussion  with  their  Jewish  neighbors.  They 
used  the  Aramaic  language  which  Jesus  himself 
employed.  Unfortunately  no  literature  (except 
the  material  of  the  Gospels)  which  comes  with 
any  certainty  from  these  Jewish  Christians  has 
been  handed  down  to  us,  and  our  own  knowledge 
of  the  development  of  their  thought  must  always 
remain  imperfect  and  conjectural.  They  seem 
to  have  produced  no  great  thinker,  for  Peter 
was  gifted  with  flashes  of  inspired  insight  rather 
than  with  the  power  of  creative  thought. 

The  organization  of  the  Jewish  Christians  was 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY  83 

doubtless  such  as  suited  the  needs  of  the  simple 
sect  which  I  have  described.  The  leader  was 
Peter,  whose  native  force  of  character  and  true 
devotion  had  regained  for  him  the  position  from 
which  his  denial  of  his  Lord  might  have  been 
expected  permanently  to  exclude  him.  His  restor- 
ation to  the  confidence  of  the  disciples  is  shadowed 
forth  in  the  affecting  and  mysterious  narrative 
appended  as  a  twenty-first  chapter  to  the  Gos- 
pel of  John.  With  him  stood  the  rest  of  the 
Twelve.  For  certain  special  services  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  charity  seven  men  were  appointed. 
A  little  later  we  hear  of  presbyters,  or  elders. 
The  Seven  are  probably  not  to  be  identified  with 
the  deacons  of  the  gentile  churches,  and  what 
relation  they  sustained  to  the  elders  is  uncer- 
tain. That  the  hierarchical  organization  of  the 
Catholic  Church  was  due  to  the  Jewish  element 
in  Christianity  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose ;  all 
that  we  hear  of  Jewish  Christianity  implies  a  loose 
and  free  organization. 

The  Christian  Church  is  said  to  have  been 
looked  on  with  favor  by  the  Jewish  community 
around  it  by  reason  of  the  piety  of  the  believ- 
ers and  the  evidences  of  divine  power  among 
them.  With  the  authorities  from  time  to  time 
there  came  difficulties.    The  leaders  of  the  Church 


84  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

were  arrested  and  imprisoned,  but  were  released. 
The  grounds  of  the  arrest  seem  to  have  been 
a  charge  of  revolutionary  and  seditious  utter- 
ance. This  may  have  happened  more  than  once. 
At  last  Stephen,  a  man  of  prominence  among  the 
Christians,  was  brought  before  the  Sanhedrim, 
and  in  defiance  of  the  limitations  put  by  the 
Romans  on  the  administration  of  criminal  law 
in  capital  cases,  at  what  must  have  been  a  moment 
of  great  weakness  in  the  procurator's  government, 
he  was  murdered.  The  touching  simplicity  of 
the  narrative  of  his  bloody  end  yields  only  to 
the  story  of  the  crucifixion  in  its  moving  power. 
His  death  was  the  signal  for  the  general  persecu- 
tion led  by  Saul,  then  a  young  fanatic  from  among 
the  Jews  of  the  Dispersion. 

Of  Stephen's  ideas  we  know  only  from  the 
speech  in  the  seventh  chapter  of  Acts,  which 
may  possibly  contain  something  remembered  from 
the  occasion  and  transmitted  to  the  author  from 
whose  hand  the  speech  in  its  present  form  comes 
to  "US.  It  has  often  been  held  that  in  this  speech 
Stephen  shows  himself  to  have  made  progress 
away  from  Judaism  toward  such  freedom  from 
the  Jewish  Law  as  Paul  afterward  taught.  * '  The 
Most  High,"  he  says,  ''dwelleth  not  in  houses 
made  with  hands;"  and  he  retorts  upon  his  ac- 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY  85 

cusers,  ^'Ye  stiff  necked  and  uncirciimcised  in 
heart  and  ears,  ye  do  always  resist  the  Holy 
Spirit;  as  your  fathers  did,  so  do  ye."  But  the 
former  words  are  themselves  taken  in  part  from 
the  Old  Testament,  and  go  no  further  than  all 
Jews  would  have  gone  in  the  affirmation  of  spirit- 
ual monotheism;  while  in  the  attack  on  the  Jews, 
who  "received  the  law  as  it  was  ordained  by  an- 
gels and  kept  it  not,"  he  seems,  as  in  the  rest  of 
his  speech,  merely  to  rest  on  the  common  position 
of  early  Christianity  that  not  the  unbelieving 
but  only  the  believing  and  Christian  Jews  are 
the  true  people  of  God  and  the  faithful  and 
deserving  heirs  of  the  promises.  The  question 
of  the  abrogation  of  the  Jewish  law  could  hardly, 
it  seems,  arise,  so  long  as  all  Christians  were  Jews 
and  proud  of  their  race  and  lineage. 

The  persecution,  however,  which  began  with 
the  death  of  Stephen  did  have  momentous  con- 
sequences for  the  Christian  Church.  In  the  first 
place  it  increased  the  breach  between  this  new 
sect  of  the  Jews  and  the  orthodox  Jewish  body, 
and  showed  that  permanent  harmony  was  not 
likely  to  ensue;  and  in  the  second  place,  as  we 
have  seen  in  the  last  chapter,  it  drove  Chris- 
tianity to  wider  fields  of  missionary  activity,  and 
at  Antioeh  even  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  Jew- 


S6  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

ish  nation.  From  this  moment  there  came  a  new 
and  impelling  passion  to  the  Christian  Church 
further  to  extend  its  field.  The  Acts  has  pre- 
served a  few  incidents,  notable  for  one  reason  or 
another,  and  therefore  remembered.  They  include 
accounts  of  the  conversion  to  Christ  of  an  Ethio- 
pian high  official,  and  a  Roman  centurion  at  Cass- 
area  named  Cornelius,  doubtless  exceptional  cases 
of  the  conversion  of  persons  of  gentile  birth  al- 
ready more  or  less  addicted  to  the  Jewish  religion. 
Objection  has  been  taken  to  the  stories,  but  hardly 
with  reason,  so  far  as  the  main  fact  in  each  case  is 
concerned.  These  were  isolated  heralds  of  the 
great  next  stage, — gentile  Christianity  and  the 
work  of  Paul,  Antioch,  Asia  Minor,  Greece,  Rome. 
At  the  same  time  with  these  beginnings  of 
foreign  extension  Jewish  Christianity  in  Pales- 
tine continued  in  its  own  course.  After  the  con- 
version to  Christ  of  the  fire-eating  Saul  of  Tarsus 
the  persecution  abated,  and  the  disciples  returned 
to  Jerusalem.  About  the  year  44  a  brief  time  of 
sharp  persecution  is  reported  in  which  James  the 
son  of  Zebedee,  one  of  the  Twelve,  lost  his  life. 
At  this  time  Peter — and  perhaps  others  of  the 
Twelve— undertook  missionary  work  away  from 
Jerusalem,  and  Peter's  place  as  acknowledged 
leader  was  taken  by  James,  the  Lord's  brother. 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY  87 

It  may  well  be  that  with  the  springing  up  of 
gentile  churches  the  conservative  Christians  who 
continued  to  breathe  the  somewhat  stagnant  reli- 
gious air  of  the  Jewish  capital  turned  from  these 
unforeseen  innovations  more  and  more  tenaciously 
to  the  solid  foundation  of  the  Jewish  Law.  We 
are  also  told  that  the  new-comers  into  the  Church, 
who  in  any  case  had  lacked  the  influence  of  Jesus 
Christ's  free  thought,  were  from  the  PharLsees.  It 
is  not  improbable  that  the  departure  of  Peter  and 
Barnabas,  and  later  Mark  and  Silas,  from  Jerusa- 
lem was  partly  occasioned  by  a  growing  closeness 
of  atmosphere  felt  by  the  more  liberal  minds. 
At  any  rate  the  only  glimpses  we  have  of  Chris- 
tian life  at  Jerusalem  after  the  persecution  show 
an  insistent  party  Avho  maintained  that  the  whole 
gentile  Christian  development  was  contrary  to 
the  truth.  No  man,  they  said,  can  belong  to  the 
people  of  God  and  expect  to  share  in  the  salva- 
tion to  be  brought  by  God's  Messiah,  who  does 
not  conform  to  God's  law,  undergo  circumcision, 
and  live  as  a  Jew.  The  Law,  while  not  ade- 
quate to  give  salvation,  is  indispensable  to  salva- 
tion. 

Of  the  earlier  growth  of  this  attitude  we  only 
know  that,  according  to  the  Book  of  Acts,  Peter 
once  came  under  its  censure,  but  that  it  did  not 


88  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

control  the  opinion  of  the  majority  of  the  Church 
at  Jerusalem.  Before  long,  however,  somewhat 
after  the  establishment  of  gentile  churches  in 
Asia  Minor,  those  who  held  this  view  took  meas- 
ures to  put  their  conviction  into  effect  at  Antioch, 
the  church  where  the  liberal  spirit  was  most  con- 
spicuous. Of  the  result  we  learn  both  from  Acts 
and  from  the  epistle  of  Paul  to  the  Galatians.^ 
It  was  a  great  crisis  for  the  apostolic  age  and  for 
Christian  history.  Fortunately  for  all  after 
time  the  Judaizing  emissaries  encountered  at  An- 
tioch an  able,  resolute,  and  clear-sighted  opponent 
in  the  Apostle  Paul.  He  fully  recognized  that 
such  progress  of  Christianity  in  the  world  as  he 
had  already  conceived,— extending  through  gen- 
tile countries,  but  yet  not  cut  loose  from  the 
original  city  where  centred  the  precious  tradi- 
tions of  the  life  and  death  and  resurrection  of 
its  Lord,— would  be  impossible  if  the  narrower 
spirits  won  the  day.  In  consequence  of  PauPs 
firm  stand  the  conference  of  which  we  read  in 
the  fifteenth  chapter  of  Acts  took  place  at  Jeru- 
salem. The  fate  of  Christianity  hung  on  the 
result.  If  the  leaders— James,  Peter,  and  John— 
and  the  greater  part  of  the  church  of  Jeru- 
salem had  refused  to  countenance  Paul's   Gos- 

1  Acts  XV.  1-35  ;  Gal.  ii.  1-10. 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY  89 

pel  with  its  freedom  from  the  Law  for  gentiles, 
we  cannot  suppose  that  Paul  would  have  sub- 
mitted to  their  wishes  and  preached  circumcision 
and  the  Law.  Nor  can  we  suppose  that  he,  upon 
whom  a  necessity  was  laid  that  he  should  preach 
the  Gospel,  would  have  spent  the  rest  of  his  life 
making  tents.  But  the  unity  of  the  Church 
would  have  been  broken,  the  dangers  of  irrespon- 
sible speculation  in  distant  lands  without  restraint 
from  the  traditions  of  the  life  and  teachings  of 
Jesus  Christ  the  Head,  would  have  been  enor- 
mously increased,  the  fear  which  Paul  expresses 
of  practical  shipwreck  of  his  work  would  prob- 
ably have  been  fulfilled.  A  Christian  church 
excommunicated  by  the  mother-church,  knowing 
itself  to  be  but  a  step-child,  unable  to  make  good 
its  claim  to  continuity  with  the  past,  would  prob- 
ably have  been  a  failure.  What  form  the  presenta- 
tion to  the  world  of  pure  spiritual  religion  would 
have  taken  we  cannot  know,  but  Christianity  as  we 
know  it  would  never  have  come  into  being.  For- 
tunately the  balance  turned  the  other  way;  the 
pillars  of  the  church  at  Jerusalem  recognized 
the  gentile  Christians  as  Christians  indeed,  and 
the  day  was  saved,  for  Paul  and  for  us.  It  is 
not  likely,  however,  that  any  one  of  the  three 
leaders  on  the  Jewish  side  saw   that  the   ulti- 


90  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

mate  abrogation  of  the  Law  for  Jews  as  well  as 
gentiles  would  be  the  outcome  of  the  recognition 
then  given  to  a  manifest  work  of  God. 

From  this  time  on,  however,  the  Christians 
at  Jerusalem  seem  to  have  grown  more  and  more 
devoted  to  the  observances  of  the  Jewish  reli- 
gion. Before  Paul  went  to  Jerusalem  for  the 
last  time  he  expressed,  in  writing  to  Kome,  his 
appre?iension  as  to  the  reception  he  might  re- 
ceive from  his  countrymen,^  and  we  read  in  Acts 
that  at  that  time  the  Christians  of  Judasa  were 
many  thousands  in  number  and  all  zealous  for 
the  Law.  James,  their  leader,  is  described  by 
an  early  writer  as  a  man  of  singular  holiness  after 
the  Jewish  pattern,  a  thorough  Jewish  ascetic, 
spending  his  life  in  prayer  in  the  Temple.  He 
himself  recognized  the  legitimacy  of  Paul's  work, 
and,  so  far  as  we  know,  always  continued  faith- 
ful to  the  attitude  of  approval  of  Paul  which 
he  shared  with  Peter  and  John  at  Jerusalem; 
but  there  were  irreconcilables  in  his  church,  and 
of  them  we  have  to  hear  altogether  too  often  in 
the  epistles  of  Paul.  At  Antioch,  in  the  churches 
of  Galatia,  at  Corinth  we  find  Judaizing  emis- 
saries, evidently  bringing  letters  of  recommenda- 
tion from  the  church  at  Jerusalem  and  appeal- 

iRom.  XV.  30-32. 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY  91 

ing  to  its  authority,  who  try  to  undermine  Paul's 
work  by  opposing  his  doctrine  and  attacking  his 
person. 

During  Paul's  lifetime  these  disturbers  of  the 
peace  were  not  able  to  break  the  connection  be- 
tween the  two  branches  of  the  Church,  nor,  so  far 
as  we  know,  permanently  to  withdraw  any  of 
Paul's  churches  from  their  loyal  allegiance  to 
him  as  their  founder  and  father.  Their  purpose 
was  doubtless  entirely  honest,  they  heartily  be- 
lieved that  salvation  could  come  only  to  those 
who  obeyed  the  Law.  The  contest  is  highly  in- 
teresting in  two  aspects.  On  the  one  hand  it  is 
the  first  of  the  long  series  of  controversies  be- 
tween that  type  of  Christianity  which  relies  on 
external  observances  and  sacraments  as  in  them- 
selves, so  to  speak  physically,  valid,  and  the  inner 
and  spiritual  ideal  of  the  higher  forms  of  Chris- 
tianity. This  was  the  way  in  which  Paul  ap- 
prehended the  struggle;  and  the  same  conflict 
is  present  with  us  in  our  own  day.  To  the 
Judaizers,  on  the  other  hand,  the  significance  of 
the  conflict  doubtless  lay  quite  elsewhere.  Their 
contentions  were  due  to  a  sincere  wish  to  main- 
tain proper  respect  for  the  past  and  especially 
due  regard  for  morals.  They  believed  them- 
selves to  be  fighting  against  an  unregulated  re- 


92  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

ligiousness,  bearing  the  name  of  freedom  and 
liable  to  ethical  laxity  and  perversion.  At  the 
present  day  many  Protestants,  at  least,  have 
learned  to  believe  that  Paul  was  right,  with  refer- 
ence to  each  of  these  two  aspects  of  the  conflict. 
He  was  right,  not  only  because  he  was  defending 
the  spiritual  character  of  true  religion  as  against 
religious  materialism,  but  also  because  he  was  in- 
sisting on,  and  trusting,  the  living  freedom  of 
faith  as  against  the  strait- jacket  of  a  code  of 
morality. 

But  if  these  Judaizers  were  honest,  they  were 
none  the  less  hateful.  Paul's  fierce  irony  and 
invective  in  II  Corinthians  and  Galatians  let 
us  see  how  bitterly  personal  was  their  attack. 
**For  we  are  not  bold  to  number  or  compare 
ourselves  with  certain  of  them  that  commend 
themselves ;  but  they  themselves,  measuring  them- 
selves by  themselves,  and  comparing  themselves 
with  themselves,  are  without  understanding.*' 
"I  fear,  lest  by  any  means,  as  the  serpent 
beguiled  Eve  in  his  craftiness,  your  minds 
should  be  corrupted  from  the  simplicity  and 
the  purity  that  is  toward  Christ.'*  "Such  men 
are  false  apostles,  deceitful  workers,  fashioning 
themselves  into  apostles  of  Christ."  They  are 
Satan's  ministers,  *' whose  end  shall  be  accord- 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY  93 

ing  to  their  works."  And  to  the  Galatians,  "I 
marvel/'  says  Paul,  ''that  ye  are  so  quickly  re- 
moving from  him  [i.e.  God]  that  called  you 
in  the  grace  of  Christ,  unto  a  different  Gospel." 
*'0  foolish  Galatians,  who  did  bewitch  you?" 
*'They  compel  you  to  be  circumcised,  only  that 
they  may  not  be  persecuted  for  the  cross  of 
Christ."  ''They  desire  to  have  you  circumcised, 
that  they  may  glory  in  your  flesh."  "I  would 
that  they  that  unsettle  you  would  even  cut  them- 
selves off." 

Besides  the  fierceness  and  sharpness  of  this  con- 
test which  raged  in  the  years  of  Paul's  active 
missionary  life,  two  facts  are  noteworthy  in  this 
connection.  First,  the  reverence  for  the  Church 
at  Jerusalem  and  the  Twelve  which  made  pos- 
sible the  efforts  of  these  teachers  who  came  with 
letters  of  commendation  from  Jerusalem.  The 
danger  of  their  succeeding,  the  existence  at  Cor- 
inth of  a  party  named  after  Peter,  the  concern 
of  Paul  about  his  reception  at  Jerusalem,  his 
mode  of  referring  to  the  Twelve  both  in  I  Cor- 
inthians and  in  II  Corinthians  all  testify  to  this. 
And,  secondly,  still  more  significant  is  the  fact 
that  in  every  case  Paul  seems  to  have  succeeded 
in  checking  these  movements.  With  the  prog- 
ress of  their  enterprise,  the  Judaizers  show  less 


94  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

of  insistence  on  circumcision  and  the  precepts 
of  the  Law,  and  devote  themselves  more  exclu- 
sively to  their  personal  attack  on  Paul  and  the 
effort  to  destroy  his  prestige  and  influence.  The 
contrast  between  Galatians  and  II  Corinthians 
is  here  striking  and  conclusive.  Equally  so  is 
the  corresponding  circumstance  that  in  Paul's 
later  writings  this  controversy  with  Judaizing 
emissaries  from  the  church  at  Jerusalem  disap- 
pears. It  was  so  by  no  means  the  controlling 
characteristic  of  the  apostolic  age.  It  was  not 
even  the  exclusive  occupation  of  Paul's  own  life 
and  thoughts. 

Jewish  Christianity  failed  to  dominate  the  grow- 
ing Church  throughout  the  world,  and  coinci- 
dently  with  this  failure  its  importance  in  Chris- 
tian history  gradually  diminished.  For  the  gentile 
churches  the  controversy  was  but  the  averting  of  a 
dangerous  but  never  victorious  attack  on  their 
liberties;  for  Jewish  Christianity  it  was  a  life 
and  death  struggle.  When  Jewish  Christianity 
once  suffered  the  loss  of  its  leadership  and  con- 
trol, its  case  was  hopeless.  In  the  year  70  Jeru- 
salem was  taken  by  Titus,  the  Temple  burned, 
and  the  city,  excepting  a  few  towers  and  parts 
of  the  walls,  razed  to  the  ground.  Some  years 
before  this  James,  the  Christian  leader,  had  been 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY  95 

put  to  death,  on  charges  which  are  obscure  to 
us,  by  the  Sadducean  authorities.  Not  long  after 
that,  the  usual  conditions  of  turbulence  in  Pales- 
tine were  greatly  aggravated;  Jerusalem  soon 
became  a  horrible  scene  of  bloody  partisan  strife 
and  mob  violence;  and  at  last  the  Christians — 
how  many  in  number  we  do  not  know— withdrew 
from  the  Holy  City,  fled  across  the  Jordan,  and 
took  up  their  residence  in  the  gentile  town  of 
Pella.  Without  a  centre,  without  any  important 
general  organization,  without  any  great  leader, 
Jewish  Christianity  as  a  distinctive  power  in 
the  Christian  Church  came  to  its  end.  There 
continued  to  be  Christians  in  Palestine.  Some 
of  these,  like  Hegesippus  in  the  second  century, 
entered  wholly  into  sympathy  with  general 
church  thought.  Others  maintained  their  na- 
tional characteristics,  and,  like  the  similar  bodies 
of  Christian  Jews  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  were 
more  or  less  well  known  to  Christian  writers  for 
several  centuries  as  Nazarene  or  Ebionite  Chris- 
tians. Cut  off  from  the  main  Church,  and  treated 
as  heretics,  they  gradually  disappear  from  view. 
It  seems  almost  like  irony  when  about  150  a.  d., 
eighty  years  after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
Justin  Martyr^  actually  apologizes  for  his  own 

1  Dial.  47. 


96  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

liberality  in  holding  that  some  Christians  who  ob- 
serve the  institutions  of  Judaism  can  be  saved. 
It  marks  the  complete  reduction  of  specific  Jewish 
Christianity  to  the  position  of  a  half -tolerated 
sect. 

Once  later  this  sect  came  forward  with  a  great 
literary  product.  Out  of  the  Jewish  Christian 
sect  known  as  Elxaites  there  proceeded,  possibly 
at  the  end  of  the  second  century,  a  religious 
romance  from  which  the  long  and  tedious  lit- 
erature still  extant  and  known  as  the  Clemen- 
tine Homilies  and  Recognitions  has  grown.  It 
is  a  glorification  of  Peter,  in  which  Paul  is  per- 
haps not  attacked  but  only  ignored.  It  was 
widely  read,  but  its  theological  importance  and 
influence  have  been  greatly  exaggerated  in  modern 
times.  These  same  Elxaites,  however,  have  one 
channel  of  influence  which  holds  strong  to-day. 
In  one  of  their  communities  dwelt  for  a  time 
in  the  sixth  century  Mohammed,  the  prophet  of 
Islam,  and  from  this  sect  ]\Iohammedanism  seems 
to  have  derived  its  strange  Christian  and  Jewish 
elements.  There  could  scarcely  be  a  better  illus- 
tration of  how  Jewish  Christianity,  divorced  from 
the  vigorous  life  of  the  active  world,  was  tossed, 
degenerate,  into  the  mixed  pot  of  oriental  reli- 
gious syncretism. 


JEWISH  CHRISTIANITY.  97 

Jewish  Christianity  was  the  first  stage  in  the 
history  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  as  such  it 
completed  its  work  and  passed  away.  In  its  char- 
acter of  a  Jewish  sect  of  simple  **poor  men," 
occupied  in  combining  Jewish  religious  observ- 
ances with  the  literal  fulfilment  of  the  precepts 
of  Jesus,  it  was  the  necessary  passage  from  the 
days  of  Jesus'  ministry  to  the  long  years  of  work 
in  the  world,  of  theological  dispute,  of  public 
influence,  of  fiery  trial  and  final  triumph.  But 
the  Christians  among  the  Jews  tried  to  preserve 
their  character  as  Jewish  Christians  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  irrepressible  inner  impulse  of  Chris- 
tianity to  offer  itself  to  the  world  and  to  ven- 
ture into  the  surging  sea  of  the  world's  life. 
Therewith  they  became  a  body  of  reactionary  con- 
servatives within  the  Christian  Church,  instead 
of  being  merely  the  advanced  progressives  of  the 
Jewish  nation,  and  from  that  moment  Jewish 
Christianity  was  an  anachronism,  and  its  healthy 
and  vigorous  life  was  past;  the  living  organism 
had  become  a  fossil. 

But  although  Jewish  Christianity  thus  resigned 
its  place  to  a  type  of  Christianity  that  knew  bet- 
ter how  to  apprehend  the  essential  and  neglect 
the  encumbering,  it  had  yet  made  already  its 
own  primary   contribution  to   Christian  history 


98  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

and  Christian  thought.  Many  are  the  ways  by 
which  Jewish  influences  came  into  Christian 
thought,— through  the  Jew  Paul,  through  Jews 
converted  in  Asia  Minor,  Greece,  Italy,  and  Alex- 
andria, through  Jewish  ideas  spread  through  the 
world.  But  all  these  are  far  less  significant  than 
those  fundamental  possessions  which  Christian- 
ity had  from  the  start,  which  gentile  Christian- 
ity derived  from  Jewish  Christianity,  and  which 
the  Christian  Church  could  not  have  had  if  the 
life  of  Christ  had  been  injected  by  itself  into 
the  gentile  world.  We  may  mention  some  of  these 
things  which  we  owe  to  Jewish  Christianity. 
First,  we  must  name  the  tradition  of  the  life 
of  Jesus  contained  in  the  Gospels;  secondly,  the 
idea  of  the  Messiah,  and  the  whole  theological 
system  which  it  implies,  together  with  the  notions 
of  faith,  salvation,  and  vicarious  suffering ;  third, 
the  apocalyptic  spirit,  which  is  the  spirit  of  as- 
sured confidence  in  the  triumph  of  God's  cause, 
and  is  indispensable;  fourth,  the  Old  Testament. 
Christianity  could  have  existed  without  some,  pos- 
sibly without  any,'  of  these.  It  could  not  have 
been  what  it  is,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  it  could 
have  long  survived,  without  all  of  them. 


IV 

THE  APOSTLE  PAUL 

Of  one  individual  man  in  the  apostolic  age 
we  are  able  to  have  direct  personal  knowledge, 
and  it  is  by  no  accident  that  the  Apostle  Paul 
looms  up  as  the  greatest  single  figure  in  the 
records  and  traditions  of  Christianity  in  that 
period.  The  opportunity  we  have  of  acquaintance 
with  him  is,  indeed,  partly  due  to  his  rare  power 
of  self-expression  and  delight  in  it.  But  it  is 
also,  and  in  no  less  measure,  due  to  the  real 
greatness  of  the  man,  without  which  the  ex- 
pressions of  himself  would  not  have  been  called 
forth,  would  not  have  been  interesting  to  his 
contemporaries,  and  would  not  have  been  pre- 
served for  us.  Of  our  only  narrative  of  events 
in  the  apostolic  age,  the  Book  of  Acts,  Paul  is 
the  chief  and  undisputed  hero ;  of  the  impression 
left  by  his  personality  on  the  generation  immedi- 
ately succeeding  the  apostolic  age  we  have  evi- 
dence in  the  words  of  Ignatius  and  of  Poly- 
carp  within  fifty  or  sixty  years  of  his  death,  as 


100  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

well  as  from  Clement,  who,  waiting  at  Rome 
about  the  year  95,  speaks  of  Paul  as  one  who 
**  gained  the  noble  renown  which  was  the  reward 
of  his  faith,  having  taught  righteousness  unto  the 
whole  world." 

For  Paul's  continued  influence  we  have  but 
to  think  of  the  inclusion  of  his  writings  in  the 
canon  of  Scripture,  and  of  the  early  attribu- 
tion to  his  words  of  the  full  inspiration  of  God 
implied  thereby.  And  if  it  be  said  that  the 
Catholic  Church  through  the  longer  period  of 
its  history  has  honored  his  name  without  appro- 
priating the  substance  of  his  thought,  we  have 
but  to  look  at  the  great  influences  which  have 
formed  the  religion  of  northern  Europe  and  to- 
day rule  there  and  on  the  continent  of  North 
America  and  in  the  budding  Christianity  of 
eastern  Asia  to  see  that  from  the  time  when 
Martin  Luther  rediscovered— or,  shall  we  say,  first 
fully  apprehended— the  meaning  of  Paul  to  the 
present  time,  no  interpretation  of  Jesus  Christ 
has  approached  in  power  over  the  hearts  and 
lives  of  men  that  which  the  epistles  of  Paul 
the  Apostle  offer  us.  To-day  in  spite  of  the 
remoteness  of  Paul's  time,  of  his  dependence 
on  a  background  of  thought  and  a  view  of  the 
world  which  has  disappeared,  and  of  the  repel- 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  101 

lent  strangeness  of  much  of  his  method  of  thought 
and  argument,  we  yet  find  the  learned  and 
critical  scholar,  the  practical  pastor,  the  simple 
and  uneducated  Christian  alike  drawing  from 
this  prismatic  Paul,  each  in  his  own  measure, 
guidance  and  inspiration. 

The  Apostle  Paul  was  the  great  leader  in  the 
momentous  transition  which  characterized  the 
apostolic  age,  the  transition  from  a  prevailingly 
Jewish  to  a  prevailingly  gentile  Christianity.  Un- 
der his  guidance  Christianity  was  saved  from 
atrophy  and  death,  which  threatened  it  if  it 
remained  confined  in  Palestine.  At  the  same 
time,  by  reason  of  his  insight  into  the  truth  of 
the  Gospel  and  fidelity  to  it,  as  well  as  by  his 
devotion  to  the  Old  Testament  and  loyalty  to  the 
highest  Jewish  ideals  in  which  he  had  been  reared, 
he  saved  Christianity  from  the  moral  and  reli- 
gious degeneracy  to  which  it  would  surely  have 
been  brought  if  it  had  broken  with  its  past,  and 
had  tried  to  stand  alone  and  helpless  amid  the 
whirl  of  Greek  religious  movements  of  the  first 
and  second  Christian  centuries.  In  Paul  a  great 
force  of  onward  movement  and  a  profound  and 
conscious  radicalism  were  combined  with  funda- 
mentally conservative  principles. 

Paul  appears  to  have  been  born  at  not   far 


102  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

from  the  same  time  as  Jesus  Christ.    His  parents 
were   residents   of   Tarsus  in   Cilicia,   to   which 
city  there  is  reason  to  think  that  they  had  re- 
moved from  the  town  of  Gischala  in  northern 
Galilee.     The  father,  like  many  Jews,  had  the 
privilege  of  Roman  citizenship.     This  passed  by 
inheritance  to  the  son,   and  made  him  a  free- 
man, with  all  the   rights   thereto   appertaining, 
throughout  the  Roman  empire.    The  parents  were, 
however,  not  hellenized  Jews  who  had  abandoned 
the  Aramaic  language,  and  opened  themselves  to 
the  influences  and  conformed  in  a  measure  to 
the  customs  of  the  Hellenic  world  in  which  they 
lived.    They  had  retained  the  language  and  cus- 
toms of  Hebrews,  and  were  Pharisees,  as  perhaps 
had   been    also    Paul's    grandfather.      To    their 
son  they  gave  the  name  Saul,  a  name  not  uncom- 
mon among  Jews  of  this  period  and  recalling  the 
great  king  of  the  tribe   of  Benjamin  to  which 
the  family  belonged.    He  must  also  as  a  Roman 
citizen  have  had  a  complete  Roman  name,  with 
nomen,  cognomen  and  praenomen ;  but  of  this  only 
what  appears  to  be  the  cognomen  Paulus  has  come 
down  to  us.    They  also  sent  him  to  Jerusalem  to 
be  educated.    The  connection  of  the  family  with 
Jerusalem  is  further  shown  by  the  fact  that  Paul 
seems  later  to  have  had  a  sister  married  there, 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  103 

whose  son  by  his  timely  warning  once  saved  the 
Apostle's  life. 

In  Jerusalem  the  boy  will  have  become  ac- 
quainted with  the  Jewish  common  law  by  which 
the  rabbis,  like  judicial  authorities  in  all  times, 
supplemented  the  ancient  statutes.  He  will  also 
have  learned  the  rabbinical  logic  and  dialectics,  of 
which  his  epistles  show  him  a  master,  and  have 
addressed  himself  profoundly  to  the  study  of 
what  we  may  call  the  theological  system  of  his 
famous  teacher,  Gamaliel  the  elder.  And  he  will 
doubtless  have  greatly  deepened  his  knowledge  of 
the  Hebrew  language  and  of  the  original  text  of 
the  Hebrew  Bible. 

This  Hebrew  and  rabbinical  discipline  appears 
to  have  combined  with  something  of  Greek  edu- 
cation. Tarsus  in  the  first  century  was  an  im- 
portant university  town,  and  it  is  especially 
noted  concerning  it  that  the  men  of  learning 
were  not  imported  from  other  places,  but  were 
natives  of  the  city.  The  influence  of  Greek 
learning  on  Paul  is  not  easy  to  measure.  There 
is  barely  a  quotation  from  any  Greek  writer  in 
Paul's  writings,  and  but  little  of  the  technical 
phrases  or  ideas  of  the  Greek  philosophy  of  his 
time.  Of  all  this  his  epistles  show  no  more  than 
might  have   come   to   any  intelligent  man  who 


104  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

mingled  in  serious  intercourse  with  men  of  the 
Greek  world.  In  Paul's  use  of  the  Greek  lan- 
guage, however,  we  seem  to  have  clear  evidence 
of  early  education.  He  uses  Greek  not  like  a 
foreigner  who  has  acquired  it  in  mature  years, 
but  with  the  ease  and  freedom  of  one  born  to 
its  use.  He  does  not  indeed  show  literary  and 
rhetorical  training,  but  rather  the  power  of 
a  bright  mind  accustomed  to  elevated  conversa- 
tion and  address,  and  filled  with  the  language 
and  ideas  of  the  Greek  translation  of  the  Old 
Testament.  For  in  this  use  of  the  Septuagint, 
including  the  Greek  book  of  the  Wisdom  of 
Solomon,  Paul  seems  again  to  betray  an  early 
acquaintance  with  Greek.  He  does  not  appear 
merely  to  be  adapting  himself  here  to  the  needs 
of  his  readers,  but  plainly  is  at  home  in  the 
translation,  preferring  to  use  it  rather  than  to 
make  an  independent  translation  for  himself,  and 
even  following  it  in  errors  and  obscurities.  He 
frequently  shows  by  his  allusions  that  he  has  not 
only  the  quotation  itself  but  the  larger  context  in 
mind,  while  words  and  phrases  and  figures  from 
the  Greek  Old  Testament  are  woven  into  the  very 
fabric  of  his  sentences. 

We  may  describe  Paul,  then,  as  an  able  and 
thoroughly  trained  Jew,  who  had  gained  from 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  105 

his  residence  in  a  Greek  city  that  degree  of  Greek 
education  which  complete  familiarity  with  the 
Greek  language  and  the  habitual  use  of  the  Greek 
translation  of  the  Scriptures  could  bring.  At 
bottom  he  ever  remained  the  Jew,  in  his  feel- 
ings, his  background  of  ideas,  and  his  mode  of 
thought,  but  he  knew  how  to  make  tolerably  in- 
telligible to  Greek  readers  the  truths  in  which, 
as  he  came  to  believe,  lay  the  satisfaction  of  their 
deepest  needs. 

At  Jerusalem  Paul  entered  ardently  into  the 
pursuit  of  the  Pharisaic  ideal  of  complete  con- 
formity in  every  particular  to  the  Law.  He  was, 
he  tells  us,  ''found  blameless"  (to  every  eye 
but  that  of  his  own  conscience),  and,  he  says,  "I 
advanced  in  the  Jews*  religion  beyond  many  of 
mine  own  age  among  my  countrymen,  being  more 
exceedingly  zealous  for  the  traditions  of  my 
fathers."  With  fiery  passion  he  entered  into  the 
persecution  of  the  Christian  sect,  was  present  and 
took  a  kind  of  part  at  the  murder  of  Stephen,  and 
undertook  to  carry  on  the  work  of  suppression 
outside  of  Palestine  at  Damascus,  whither  he  jour- 
neyed for  this  purpose  with  letters  of  introduction 
from  the  authorities  at  Jerusalem. 

At  this  time  took  place  his  conversion.  That 
he  was  converted,  and  at  or  near  Damascus,  his 


106  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

own  words  leave  no  doubt.  ''I  persecuted,"  he 
says  in  writing  to  the  Galati^ns,  "the  Church 
of  God.  .  .  .  But  when  it  was  the  good  pleas- 
ure of  God,  who  separated  me,  even  from  my 
mother's  womb,  and  called  me  through  his  grace, 
to  reveal  his  Son  in  me,  that  I  might  preach 
him  among  the  gentiles ;  straightway  I  conferred 
not  with  flesh  and  blood:  neither  went  I  up 
to  Jerusalem  to  them  which  were  apostles  be- 
fore me :  but  I  went  away  into  Arabia ;  and  again 
I  returned  unto  Damascus.  "^  The  change  evi- 
dently presented  itself  to  Paul's  mind  as  a  direct 
divine  interposition  in  his  life.  It  came  to  him 
in  a  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ,  whereby  (and 
through  no  human  intermediary)  he  received 
the  Gospel  which  he  preached,  and  the  com- 
mission to  be  an  apostle.  He  refers  to  it  as  to 
a  single  event  and  an  absolute  change  of  direc- 
tion, not  a  gradual  process  and  development; 
the  two  parts  of  his  life  stood  sharply  contrasted, 
he  did  not  conceive  that  he  had  slid  by  imper- 
ceptible stages  from  one  to  the  other.  ''What 
things  [i.e.  his  advantages  of  birth  and  Jewish 
attainment]  were  gain  to  me,  these  have  I  counted 
loss  for  Christ  ...  for  whom  I  suffered" — 
as  if  in  a  single  moment— "the  loss  of  all  things.  "^ 

iGal.  i.  13-17. 
2  Phil.  iii.  7.  8. 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  107 

Moreover  Paul  connects  his  own  experience,  ap- 
parently at  his  conversion,  with  the  appearances 
of  the  risen  Lord  which  had  converted  the  ter- 
rified disciples  to  a  belief  that  their  Master  lived 
as  Lord  and  Christ  in  heaven.  In  recounting  the 
appearances  he  mentions  that  to  himself  as  the 
latest  in  time  but  as  entirely  on  a  level  with  the 
others.^  And  in  another  place  he  affirms  that  he 
like  other  apostles  has  ''seen  Jesus  our  Lord."^ 
From  Paul's  own  words,  then,  we  know  that  he 
was  converted  from  a  persecutor  to  a  Christian, 
at  a  definite  time  and  at  or  near  Damascus,  by 
what  he  considered  to  be  the  direct  interposi- 
tion of  God;  and  it  seems  to  be  this  experience 
of  which  he  thought  as  a  vision  of  the  risen 
Christ. 

The  Book  of  Acts  supplies  us  with  three  ac- 
counts of  the  conversion  of  Paul,  thus  testifying 
to  the  enormous  importance  which  the  author 
ascribed  to  this  event.  They  differ  slightly,  but 
not  enough  to  prove  that  they  come  from  dif- 
ferent written  sources,  nor  on  the  other  hand  to 
throw  any  discredit  on  the  writer's  trustworthi- 
ness in  reproducing  what  he  had  received.  Paul, 
the  fiery  persecutor,  approaching  Damascus,  sud- 

II  Cor.  XV.  4-8. 
«I  Cor.  ix.  1. 


108  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

denly  sees  in  broad  daylight  a  light  from  heaven 
of  intolerable  brightness,  and  hears  a  voice  in 
the  Aramaic  language,   ''Saul,   Saul,   why  per- 
secutest  thou  me."     In  answer  to  his  question 
the   supernatural   being   from   whom   the   voice 
comes   announces  himself,   "I   am   Jesus  whom 
thou  persecutest, "  and  bids  Paul  complete  his 
journey  to  Damascus,  where  he  shall  find  Chris- 
tian succor  and  counsel.     The  men  with  Paul 
were  aware  of  a  sudden  and  extraordinary  hap- 
pening of  some  sort,  but,  as  we   are  expressly 
told,   received  nothing   of  the   real  meaning  of 
the  occurrence,  not  hearing  the  words.    In  brief, 
the  account  is  that  of  a  manifestation  to  Paul's 
inner  sense,   given  in  a  flood  of  light  and  by 
the  hearing  of  words,  whereby  Paul  became  sat- 
isfied that  he  had  had  intercourse   with  Jesus 
of  Nazareth,  the  crucified  malefactor.    Paul  was 
thereby  convinced  that  Jesus  had  risen  from  the 
dead  and  was  living  in  heavenly  glory.     This 
conviction  was  the  same  as  that  which,  we  have 
seen,  brought  about  the  regathering  of  the  ear- 
liest disciples,  and  it  would  obviously  be  suffi- 
cient in  itself  to  transform  Paul  from  a  perse- 
cutor to  a  believing  disciple. 

The   account   of   Paul's    conversion   given   in 
Acts   with   so   much    circumstantiality    and    em- 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  109 

phasis  has  often  been  declared  to  be  incredible. 
Those  who  are  unwilling  to  see  here  a  real  mani- 
festation of  a  divine  being  in  visible  form  have 
commonly  said  that  the  narrative  is  merely  the 
fanciful  objective  form  given  by  the  operation 
of  later  imagination  to  the  fact  that  within  Paul's 
soul,  by  a  process  of  rational  conviction,  light 
dawned  upon  darkness.  This  explanation  has 
never  proved  entirely  satisfactory.  The  com- 
plete invention  of  nearly  every  element  of  the 
story,  which  it  supposes,  seems  highly  improbable, 
and  to  assume  any  degree  of  invention  less  than 
that  affords  no  assistance,  because  the  essence 
of  the  story  lies  in  precisely  those  parts  to  which 
most  exception  is  taken.  But  a  broader  knowl- 
edge of  the  facts  of  religious  psychology  shows 
that  the  account  given  in  Acts  is  not  without 
analogies  in  perfectly  attested  human  experience. 
The  vision  of  light,  the  belief  that  a  voice  of 
some  kind  has  been  heard,  and  the  accompany- 
ing radical  change  in  the  man's  soul, — of  these 
we  may  read  over  and  over  again  in  the  trans- 
parently honest  statements  of  good  men  about 
their  own  experiences.  In  view  of  the  testi- 
monies which  can  be  read  in  the  books  on  con- 
version and  on  the  description  of  religious  ex- 
perience the  a  priori  objections  of  Biblical  critics 


no  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

of  the  last  century  lose  their  weight,  and  I 
can  see  no  reason  for  denying  that  the  narratives 
of  Acts  give  the  story  of  PauPs  conversion  sub- 
stantially as  he  himself  was  conscious  of  hav- 
ing undergone  it,  and  was  in  the  habit  of  tell- 
ing it.  If  that  is  true,  perhaps  the  greatest  his- 
torical difficulty  in  the  Pauline  half  of  the  Book 
of  Acts  is  removed. 

It  must,  of  course,  be  admitted,  if  this  ap- 
peal is  made  to  the  analogy  of  other  conversions, 
that  the  non-natural,  or  anti-natural,  character 
of  the  conversion  of  Paul  is  abandoned.  But 
that  is  by  no  means  to  deny  the  divine  character 
of  this  great  event.  Alike  in  the  unusual  and 
unique,  and  in  the  usual  and  regular,  and  in  all 
the  grades  between,  the  hand  of  God  is  to  be 
seen  by  those  who  believe  in  God.  And  on  the 
other  hand,  the  mere  fact  of  uniqueness  is  in 
no  sense  a  guarantee  that  God  has  wrought  the 
event.  The  evidence  of  that  is  to  be  found  solely 
in  the  nature  of  the  result  produced.  No  Chris- 
tian can  doubt  that  in  the  conversion  of  Paul 
the  cause  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  this  world 
passed  a  great  crisis  and  received  a  vast  incre- 
ment of  power. 

Of  the  inner  process  which  preceded  and  ac- 
companied Paul's  conversion  we  have  what  seems 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  111 

to  be  an  account  in  the  seventh  chapter  of  Ro- 
mans, the  famous  chapter  where  Paul  depicts  the 
struggle  of  the  higher  and  lower  natures  to  pos- 
sess the  human  soul,  and  with  a  truthfulness  that 
appeals  pathetically  to  the  human  nature  of  every 
age  exposes  the  impotence  of  the  unaided  human 
will.  Upon  that  wretched  state  of  unfulfilled 
longing  after  righteousness  he  looked  back  as 
characterizing  his  life  before  conversion.  And 
the  main  significance  of  the  conversion  itself 
appeared  to  him  to  have  been  the  release  from 
that  state.  We  need  however  to  remember  that 
that  was  his  later  interpretation,  and  not  to  sup- 
pose that  at  the  moment  of  his  conversion  he 
would  have  described  it  in  precisely  that  way. 
Yet  the  chapter  does  surely  reveal  to  us  a  man 
unhappy  with  the  sense  of  sin  from  which  no 
power  that  he  knows  can  release  him.  Another 
hint  is  often  thought  to  be  given  in  the  obscure 
words  of  a  Greek  proverb  found  in  one  account 
of  the  conversion,  *'It  is  hard  for  thee  to  kick 
against  the  goad."  It  may  be  that  here,  too,  we 
see  reflected  some  brooding  and  profound  dis- 
satisfaction which  is  hard  to  define  more  closely. 
But  the  essential  change  lay  in  the  new  belief 
that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  the  IMessiah.  Some- 
how, the  difficulties  of  Paul's  whole  religious  and 


112  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

moral  position  gained  such  accumulation  of  force 
that  by  what  seemed  to  him  a  miracle  they  were 
enabled  to  overpower  and  sweep  away  the  sane 
barrier  of  his  fundamental  Jewish  conviction,  and 
so  that  view  about  Jesus  established  itself  as  true 
which  had  hitherto  seemed  to  him  equally  impos- 
sible and  startling.  Out  of  the  wreck  of  thought 
which  this  revolution  caused,  there  emerged  a  last- 
ing relief  from  the  pricking  spur  and  from  the 
inner  conflict;  but  it  is  important  to  distinguish 
the  actual  nature  of  the  central  change  itself 
both  from  the  dissatisfaction  which  may  have 
been  one  of  its  causes,  and  from  the  unexpected 
blessings  which  issued  from  it. 

After  Paul's  conversion,  which  took  place  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Tiberius  (14-37 
A.  D.),  about  fifteen  years  passed  before  the  mis- 
sionary career  began  of  which  we  have  knowl- 
edge from  Acts  and  from  Paul's  own  epistles. 
During  this  time  Paul  was  first  in  Arabia,  that 
is  in  some  part  of  the  empire  of  which  Damascus 
w^as  the  most  famous  city,  then  in  Damascus,  and 
later,  after  a  brief  visit  to  Jerusalem,  in  Cilicia, 
doubtless  at  his  old  home  Tarsus.  In  this  period 
we  may  suppose  that  he  was  adjusting  his  whole 
system  of  thought  to  the  new  centre  which  had  es- 
tablished itself  in  his  mind,  the  Messiahship  of 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  113 

Jesus.  With  the  new  basis  in  mind  every  part 
of  his  intellectual  world  must  have  been  thought 
through.  Especially,  we  may  believe,  will  he 
have  studied  the  relation  of  Christian  faith  to 
the  old  dispensation  and  to  the  ideas  of  the 
prophets.  The  fruit  of  these  years  we  have  in 
the  matured  thought  of  the  epistles.  They  show 
a  steadiness  of  view  and  a  readiness  of  resource 
in  the  use  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  testify 
to  thorough  work  in  the  time  of  preparation. 
Epistles  written  years  apart,  like  Galatians,  Ro- 
mans and  Philippians,  surprise  us  by  their  uni- 
formity of  thought  and  unstrained  similarity 
of  language,  in  spite  of  the  richness  and  vivacity 
of  Paul's  thought  and  style.  So,  for  the  most 
part,  the  characteristic  ideas  even  of  Ephesians 
and  Colossians  are  found  suggested  in  germ  in 
Corinthians  and  the  earlier  epistles.  Paul's 
epistles  represent  the  literary  flowering  of  a 
mind  prepared  by  years  of  study  and  reflec- 
tion. 

At  Paul's  first  missionary  journey  and  the 
beginning  then  made  of  churches  in  Asia  Minor 
we  have  already  looked  in  a  previous  chapter. 
After  his  return  to  Antioch  followed  that  great 
and  pivotal  occasion  of  early  Christian  history, 
the   so-called   Council,   or   Conference,   at  Jeru- 


114  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

salem,  described  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  Acts 
and  by  Paul  in  the  second  chapter  of  Galatians. 
At  that  time  Paul  established  his  right  to  carry- 
on  the  work  of  Christian  missions  in  accord- 
ance with  his  own  principles  and  his  own  under- 
standing of  the  Christian  religion.  His  relation 
with  the  Twelve  Apostles  seems  then  and  at  all 
times  to  have  been  cordial.  His  difficulties  came 
from  others  in  the  Jewish  Church.  To  this  we 
know  of  only  one  exception,  apparently  some- 
what later  than  the  Conference,  the  occasion  at 
Antioch  when  Peter  under  pressure  from  Jeru- 
salem withdrew  from  fellowship  with  the  gen- 
tile brethren,  and  called  out  from  Paul  the  severe 
rebuke  of  which  we  read  in  Galatians.  There 
is  reason  to  believe  that  the  rebuke  accomplished 
its  purpose.  At  any  rate,  at  a  later  time  there  is 
no  evidence  of  a  continued  breach. 

The  idea  of  missionary  travel  had  evidently 
taken  possession  of  Paul,  for  after  returning 
from  Jerusalem  to  Antioch  he  soon  started  out 
again,  and  was  incessantly  occupied  with  mis- 
sionary work  from  now  until  the  moment  of 
his  arrest  at  Jerusalem.  Leaving  Antioch  on  his 
second  journey  he  and  his  companions  hurried 
across  Asia  Minor,  stopping  only,  it  would  appear, 
to  revisit  and  inspect  churches  previously  estab- 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  115 

lished.  They  were  led  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  the 
writer  of  Acts  believed,  to  direct  their  course  west- 
ward as  rapidly  as  possible  to  Greece,  which  was 
to  be  the  next  stage  in  the  path  to  the  capital 
of  the  world.  In  Macedonia  and  Achaia  Paul 
and  his  companions  worked  with  varying  success 
at  Philippi,  Thessalonica,  Beroea,  Athens, 
Corinth.  At  Corinth,  the  chief  commercial  city 
of  Greece,  the  Christians  arrived  in  the  late 
autumn.  The  work  opened  well,  and  Paul  re- 
mained at  that  important  centre  until  a  year 
from  the  following  spring.  The  date  of  his  ar- 
rival cannot  be  exactly  determined,  but  is  prob- 
ably one  of  the  five  years  between  49  and  53 
A.  D.  While  at  Corinth  he  wrote  the  First  and  (if 
it  is  genuine)  the  Second  Epistle  to  the  Thessa- 
lonians.  Somewhere  about  this  time,  perhaps  be- 
fore leaving  Antioch  for  this  journey,  the  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians  was  written.  The  churches  of 
Galatia,  to  which  it  is  addressed,  were  prob- 
ably the  churches  known  to  us  in  Acts  as  Pisi- 
dian  Antioch,  Iconium,  Lystra,  and  Derbe. 

After  a  flying  trip  to  Syria  and  perhaps  to 
Jerusalem  Paul  returned  to  Ephesus  in  Asia 
Minor,  where  he  settled  down  for  a  stay  of  three 
years.  A  few  incidents  of  this  period  have  been 
recorded  in  the  Book  of  Acts,   and  are  among 


116  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

the  most  striking  and  realistic  that  we  have. 
They  include  a  remarkable  number  of  points  of 
contact  with  facts  known  to  us  from  archaeological 
discoveries,  and  in  no  chapters  of  Acts  is  our 
confidence  more  fully  reassured  in  the  contempo- 
rary knowledge  and  the  trustworthiness  of  the 
writer  of  the  book. 

While  at  Ephesus  Paul  had  much  communi- 
cation with  Corinth,  and  wrote  I  Corinthians, 
which  had  clearly  been  preceded  by  another  let- 
ter. There  are  indications  in  II  Corinthians  that 
after  this  he  found  the  difficulties  in  the  church 
at  Corinth  such  that  he  wrote  them  at  least  one 
letter  which  has  been  lost,  and  made  a  short, 
and  in  its  outcome  exceedingly  painful,  trip  to 
Corinth  and  back  to  Ephesus.  Finally  he  was 
impelled  by  danger  to  his  life  to  leave  Ephesus, 
and  went  through  Macedonia  to  Corinth.  On  the 
way  he  wrote,  to  prepare  for  his  own  presence, 
the  epistle  we  call  II  Corinthians.  Arriving  at 
Corinth  in  the  early  winter  he  stayed  until  spring. 
His  literary  impulse  continued  active,  and  to  this 
winter  we  owe  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  Earlier 
letters  had  been  called  out  by  special  need  in 
one  or  another  church;  in  Romans  Paul  comes 
nearer  to  a  systematic  exposition  of  his  theology 
than  in  any  of  his  earlier  writings.     He  knew 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  117 

the  importance  that  would  surely  belong  to  the 
Christian  church  of  Rome.  He  had  made  up 
his  mind  to  go  there.  But  first  he  must  go  to 
Jerusalem,  and  there  were  dangers  both  from 
the  risks  of  travel  and  from  hostile  men.  Of 
each  kind  his  life  had  had  many  examples.  Ac- 
cordingly he  provided  for  the  Roman  Christians 
a  clear  statement  of  his  main  position,  together 
with  a  reply  to  several  of  the  chief  objections 
brought  against  it,  notably  the  allegations  that 
his  presentation  of  Christianity  involve  the  abro- 
gation of  God's  promises  to  his  chosen  people, 
and  that  it  opened  the  way  to  moral  laxity. 

This  letter  Paul  sent  as  an  earnest  of  his  own 
visit  to  Rome.  He  had  been  for  a  year  or  more 
supervising  the  collection  by  the  churches  of  Asia 
Minor  and  Europe  of  a  contribution  for  the  poor 
Christians  at  Jerusalem;  the  gentile  churches 
should  thus  make  a  repayment  in  carnal  things 
to  those  who  had  made  them  to  be  partakers  of 
their  spiritual  things.  This  contribution  was  now 
ready,  and  Paul  himself  with  a  group  of  repre- 
sentatives of  the  chief  churches  took  ship  at 
Philippi  and  Troas  for  Jerusalem.  The  voyage 
is  narrated  in  detail  in  Acts,  evidently  by  one 
who  was  a  member  of  the  company.  At  last 
Paul  reached  Jerusalem,  and  was  well  received 


118  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

by  the  church;  but,  followed  as  he  was  by  the 
hatred  of  Jews  from  the  Dispersion  who  had 
recognized  the  menace  to  the  Jewish  religion 
proceeding  from  the  new  sect,  he  was  set  upon 
by  a  mob,  rescued  only  by  being  taken  in  custody 
by  the  Roman  authorities,  and  after  a  series  of 
exciting  adventures  which  will  be  found  admir- 
ably told  in  the  Book  of  Acts,  was  brought  to 
Csesarea.  There  he  stayed  a  prisoner  for  two 
years  and  more  until  on  the  occasion  of  a  change 
of  Roman  Governor  his  case  was  brought  up 
for  trial,  when  he  exercised  the  right  of  a  Roman 
citizen  to  appeal  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Governor  to  that  of  the  imperial  court  at  Rome. 
It  was  late  autumn,  but  he  was  despatched 
with  a  companion  whom  we  may  well  believe  to 
be  Luke  the  beloved  physician,  and  from  whom 
our  account  certainly  comes.  The  narrative  of 
Paul's  voyage  and  shipwreck,  of  the  winter  on  the 
island  of  Malta,  and  the  final  arrival  at  Rome 
early  in  one  of  the  years  between  58  and  62  a.  d.  is 
familiar.  It  is  the  most  important  document  that 
antiquity  has  left  us  for  an  understanding  of 
the  mode  of  working  an  ancient  ship,  while  the 
picture  which  it  gives  of  Paul  as  a  practical  man 
is  a  delightful  supplement  to  our  other  knowledge 
of  him. 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  119 

In  Rome,  while  under  guard  awaiting  trial, 
Paul  probably  wrote  Philippians,  Colossians, 
Philemon,  and  the  circular  letter,  seemingly  in- 
tended for  churches  in  Asia  Minor,  known  to 
us  as  Ephesians.  They  show  some  new  develop- 
ment of  ideas  long  present  with  him,  and  some 
new  thoughts  to  which  his  other  writings  give 
no  parallel,  and  the  style  of  some  of  them  has 
changed  a  bit  from  the  freshness  of  Galatians 
and  Romans;  but  these  are  not  sufficient  rea- 
sons for  denying  that  Paul  wrote  the  letters. 
They  are,  indeed,  as  it  seems  to  me,  beyond  rea- 
sonable doubt  genuine. 

The  Book  of  Acts  ends  with  the  words,  *'And 
he  [Paul]  abode  two  whole  years  in  his  own  hired 
dwelling,  and  received  all  that  went  in  unto 
him,  preaching  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  teach- 
ing the  things  concerning  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
with  all  boldness,  none  forbidding  him."  This 
period  of  two  years  is  sufficient  to  include  the 
composition  of  the  four  epistles  to  which  refer- 
ence has  just  been  made,  Philippians,  Colossians, 
Philemon,  and  Ephesians,  the  so-called  Epistles 
of  the  Captivity.  What  happened  at  the  ex- 
piration of  the  period?  Apparently  PauPs  case, 
long  postponed,  then  came  to  trial.  Did  it  re- 
sult in  his  release  or  his  execution?     The  evi- 


120  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

dence  is  meagre  and  conflicting,  and  opinions 
differ.  It  is  perhaps  a  little  more  likely  that 
he  was  released,  and  entered  on  further  mission- 
ary work,  probably  carrying  out  his  original  pur- 
pose of  pushing  on  with  the  proclamation  of  his 
Gospel  to  the  west,  and  establishing  it  in  Spain. 
But  of  this  period  we  have  no  narrative. 

From  such  a  time  would  have  to  proceed,  if 
they  were  genuine,  the  two  epistles  to  Timothy 
and  that  to  Titus,  making  up  the  group  known 
as  the  Pastoral  Epistles.  But  many  reasons 
combine  to  show  that  these  documents  are  not 
genuine  letters  of  Paul.  The  language  and  style 
as  well  as  the  main  ideas,  the  impossible  rela- 
tion to  Timothy  and  Titus  (Paul's  attitude  and 
relations  to  whom  we  know  from  several  of  his 
earlier  letters),  all  of  this  combines  with  the  gen- 
eral situation  which  the  letters  presuppose,  to 
show  that  we  have  here  little  treatises  on  ele- 
mentar^'  church-law,  or  primitive  church-manuals, 
from  the  end  of  the  apostolic  age  or  later.  That 
certain  genuine  Pauline  fragments  have  been 
built  into  these  manuals  (particularly  in  the  case 
of  II  Timothy),  and  show  in  occasional  charac- 
teristic phrases  and  in  greetings  to  particular 
persons  the  hand  of  Paul  himself,  is  wholly  in 
accord  with   the   spirit   of   the   earliest   framers 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  121 

of  such  literature  as  it  is  elsewhere  known  to  us. 
There  are  abundant  documents  of  this  kind  from 
the  early  centuries,  many  of  which  show  this 
same  tendency  to  ascribe  the  origin  of  the  rules 
and  counsels  to  apostles,  and  scarcely  one  has 
come  down  to  us  in  its  original  form.  The  in- 
clination is  everywhere  seen,  just  as  in  the  treat- 
ment which  has  been  systematically  accorded  to 
modern  hymns,  to  adapt  for  this  purpose  an 
earlier  document  to  current  needs.  The  analogy 
of  all  this  early  literature  goes  far  to  confirm 
the  results  of  critical  investigation  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  Pastoral  Epistles. 

If  after  two  years  Paul 's  imprisonment  at  Rome 
ended  with  his  release,  as  the  absence  of  well- 
founded  charges  against  him  would  lead  us  to 
expect,  he  must  have  been  later  again  appre- 
hended, probably  in  connection  with  the  persecu- 
tion artfully  turned  against  the  Christians  at 
the  time  of  Nero's  fire  in  July  of  the  year  64. 
It  is  probable  that  he  was  beheaded,  to  which 
privilege  his  Roman  citizenship  entitled  him,  and 
that  he  was  ultimately  buried  on  the  Ostian  "Way 
at  the  spot  where  now  stands  the  splendid  basil- 
ica of  St.  Paul  Outside  the  Walls.  The  day 
on  which  the  Church  commemorates  at  once  the 
martyrdom  of  Peter  and  Paul  (June  29)  is  not 


122  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

the  day  on  which  either  of  them  died,  but  is 
perhaps  the  day  on  which  at  a  later  time  Paul's 
body  was  removed  from  a  temporary  resting  place 
in  the  Catacombs  near  S.  Sebastiano  on  the  Ap- 
pian  Way,  where  it  had  lain  side  by  side  with 
that  of  Peter,  to  the  church  on  the  Ostian  Way. 
There  is  no  sufficient  reason  for  believing  that 
Peter  and  Paul  died  on  the  same  day. 

We  have  traced  the  course  of  Paul's  life,  so 
far  as  it  is  known  to  us,  from  his  birth,  about 
the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  to  his  martyr- 
dom, probably  in  the  year  64.  We  must  now 
try  to  describe  the  characteristics  of  this  man. 
A  knowledge  of  his  temperament,  character,  and 
traits  of  mind  is  essential  to  a  just  understand- 
ing of  his  life  and  thought. 

We  have  already  seen  how  the  Greek  and  the 
Hebrew  were  mingled  in  his  birth  and  educa- 
tion. A  correct  discrimination  of  these  elements 
will  show,  I  believe,  that  Paul  was  always  funda- 
mentally the  Jew,  with  whom  what  he  knew  of 
Greek  ideas  and  habits  of  thought  rested  for 
the  most  part  as  a  veneer  on  the  surface  or 
offered  itself  merely  as  a  convenient  tool.  The 
witness  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  was  an  in- 
tegral part  of  his  thought;  in  the  wisdom  of 
men  he  refused  to  partake.    And  yet  Paul  could 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  123 

not  possibly  withdraw  himself  from  the  Greek 
world  in  which  he  lived.  His  epistles  corre- 
spond curiously  in  structure  to  the  private  let- 
ters which  every  year  brings  us  from  their  long 
burial  in  the  sand  of  Egypt.  He  describes  his 
Christian  life  in  the  language  of  the  Greek  games, 
with  a  course,  an  umpire,  a  contest,  and  a  crown. 
Greek  law,  Greek  household  life,  Greek  religion, 
the  citizens  and  the  resident  strangers  of  a  city, 
the  last  will,  the  tutor,  the  sacrificial  feast,  all 
serve  to  illustrate  the  truths  of  Paul's  doctrine. 
He  draws  a  figure  from  the  armor  of  the  Roman 
soldier.  Such  ideas  as  conscience,  nature,  the 
mind,  the  body  as  an  organism,  the  physiological 
relation  of  head  to  members  as  a  metaphor  for 
the  relation  of  Christ  to  his  Church — these  and 
many  other  details  which  spring  to  Paul's  eager 
mind  are  Greek,  and  would  not  be  in  his  writ- 
ings if  he  had  not  lived  in  daily  association  with 
Greeks.  And  in  order  to  develop  some  of  the 
remoter  and  sublimer  consequences  of  his  own 
thought  of  Christ,  he  was  forced  to  use  categories 
which  become  clear  to  us  only  through  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  Greek  philosophy  of  Alexandria.  His 
vocabulary  cannot  easily  be  rendered  into  He- 
brew. The  story  of  his  intercourse  and  cor- 
respondence with  Seneca  is  a  fable,  but  the  linea- 


124  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

ments  of  the  Stoic  ideal  wise  man,  earnestly  prac- 
tising himself  in  self-sufficiency,  and  the  concep- 
tion of  an  universal  citizenship  in  a  world-wide 
commonwealth  have  surely  aided  Paul  to  frame 
his  expression  of  the  very  different  ideal  and 
aspiration  of  the  Christian.  But  a  Greek  at 
heart  he  could  never  have  become.  The  intel- 
lectual and  speculative  interest  was  lacking  in 
him.  He  was  no  philosopher.  He  cared  for  life, 
not  for  abstract  thought;  and  truth  was  for  him 
valuable  in  proportion  as  it  contributed  to  re- 
deem man  from  captivity  to  sin  and  from  im- 
pending doom. 

In  his  personal  traits  as  a  man  Paul  appears 
as  a  warm  and  energetic,  *' zealous,"  intense, 
indeed  passionate  spirit. .  Fervor  marked  him  both 
as  a  persecutor  and  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel. 
The  first  two  chapters  of  Galatians  were  written 
in  anger.  *'I  marvel  that  ye  are  so  quickly  re- 
moving from  him  that  called  you  in  the  grace 
of  Christ  unto  a  different  gospel;  which  is  not 
another,  only  there  are  some  that  trouble  you. 
.  .  .  But  if  even  we  ourselves  or  an  angel  from 
heaven  preach  unto  you  any  gospel  other  than 
that  which  we  preached  unto  you,  let  him  be 
damned."  Such  phrases  as  *'the  false  brethren, 
smuggled  in  to  spy  out  our  liberty,"  and,  in- 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  125 

deed,  the  whole  of  that  familiar  passage  betray  the 
passion.  A  nature  easily  moved  to  intense  feel- 
ing- reveals  itself  throughout  the  epistles  as  he 
threatens,  denounces,  appeals,  entreats,  with  tones 
that  range  from  irony  to  the  pathos  of  wounded 
love. 

Yet  to  this  passionate  nature  belongs  the  tem- 
pering force   of  excellent   good  sense.     No   one 
can  read  the  practical  directions  which  make  up 
the  greater  part  of  I  Corinthians  and  relate  to 
marriage,  to  speaking  with  tongues,  to  the  eat- 
ing of  meat  that  had  been  offered  to  idols,  with- 
out observing  how,  in  spite  of  certain  mistaken 
views,    wise,    sagacious    common    sense    controls 
Paul's  judgment.     The  man  who  told  the  weary 
and  panic-stricken  ship's  company  anchored  on 
a  lee  shore  within  sound  of  the  breakers,  that 
they  must  eat  a  good  breakfast  if  they  wanted 
to  be  saved,   is  the  same  man  who  could   give 
sound   advice   to   masters   and   slaves   and    who 
warned  parents  not  to  irritate  their  children  for 
fear  of  making  them  sullen. 

Corresponding  to  the  warmth  and  passion  of 
Paul's  nature  was  his  masterful  spirit  and  his 
aristocratic  attitude  toward  the  world.  He  in- 
tends to  control  his  churches.  In  Galatia,  in  Cor- 
inth, he  demands  rather  than  invites  their  loyalty. 


126  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

He  does  not  hesitate  once  and  again  to  point  them 
to  his  own  example.  *'Be  ye  imitators  of  me." 
*'The  things  which  ye  both  learned  and  received 
and  heard  and  saw  in  me,  these  things  do." 
There  might  seem  almost  a  touch  of  arrogance 
here.  And  indeed  Paul  is  no  cringing  Shylock, 
but  moves  through  the  world  a  free  citizen,  look- 
ing to  the  constituted  authorities  as  his  support 
and  protector,  as  existing  in  a  measure  for  his 
sake.^  Nay,  he  knows  himself  to  belong  to  the 
blood  royal  of  the  world.  Is  he  not  of  the  stock 
of  Israel,  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  a  Hebrew  of 
Hebrews?  and  can  he  not  proudly  say  of  his  peo- 
ple, as  of  none  other  in  God's  world,  ''Whose  is 
the  adoption  and  the  shekinah  and  the  covenants, 
and  the  legislation  and  the  liturgy  and  the  prom- 
ises, to  whom  belong  the  patriarchs,  and  from 
whom  arises  the  Messiah?"  ^  This  aristocratic 
trait  in  Paul  is  noteworthy,  and  its  effect  is  to 
be  observed  in  many  ways  in  his  thought  and 
writings. 

But  as  Paul's  heat  and  passion  were  tempered 
by  rare  good  sense,  so  again  his  masterful  and 
aristocratic  temper  was  matched  by  an  admirable 
tenderness  and  a  considerate,  regardful  tact.    He 

iRom.  xiii.  1-7. 
2  Rom.  Ix.  4,  5. 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  127 

reminds  the  Galatians  of  their  kindness  in  his 
sickness,  and  proceeds,  "My  little  children,  of 
whom  I  am  again  in  travail  until  Christ  be 
formed  in  you."  He  says  to  the  Corinthians, 
"Whether  we  are  afflicted,  it  is  for  your  comfort 
and  salvation ;  or  whether  we  are  comforted,  it  is 
for  your  comfort;"  and  again,  "Out  of  much  af- 
fliction and  anguish  of  heart  I  wrote  unto  you 
with  many  tears ;  not  that  ye  should  be  made  sorry, 
but  that  ye  might  know  the  love  which  I  have 
more  abundantly  unto  you."  And  to  the  Philip- 
pians,  "Wherefore,  my  brethren  beloved  and 
longed  for,  my  joy  and  crown,  so  stand  fast  in  the 
Lord,  my  beloved."  These  are  but  a  few  out  of 
many  affectionate  sentences  in  these  letters. 

With  this  tenderness  belongs  Paul's  tact.  It 
was  his  principle  so  to  adapt  his  conduct  in  non- 
essentials as  to  give  least  offence  to  those  for  whom 
he  labored.  * '  To  the  Jews  I  became  as  a  Jew  that 
I  might  gain  Jews.  ...  I  am  become  all 
things  to  all  men,  that  I  may  by  all  means  save 
some. ' '  ^  Note  the  care  with  which  in  treating  of 
the  abuses  of  party  division  in  Corinth  he  draws 
his  illustration  from  the  parties  which  had  taken 
his  own  name  and  that  of  his  friend  Apollos,  that 
he  may  not  seem  specially  to  criticise  the  less  well- 

II  Cor.  ix.  20-22. 


128  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

disposed.^  See  how  tact  and  self-denial  run  into 
each  other  when  he  says,  ''Even  as  I  also  please 
all  men  in  all  things,  not  seeking  mine  own  profit, 
but  the  profit  of  the  many  that  they  may  be 
saved.  "2  And  read  the  Epistle  to  Philemon, 
where  with  supreme  delicacy  of  feeling  and  much 
lightness  of  literary  touch  the  runaway  but  peni- 
tent slave  is  commended  to  the  Christian  friend, 
his  owner. 

Of  the  many  qualities  of  temperament  revealed 
in  Paul's  letters  which  might  be  mentioned,  these 
seem  to  me  the  most  significant  and  illuminative. 
His  was  a  temperament  passionate  but  sensible, 
masterful,  almost  haughty,  but  tender  and  gifted 
with  tact. 

When  we  inquire  into  the  main  traits  of  Paul's 
mind,  as  distinguished  from  his  temperament  and 
character,  I  should  name  first  of  all  his  capacity 
as  an  organizer  and  administrator.  Paul  had  a 
clear  missionary  policy.  He  aimed  at  large  cities, 
containing  a  Jewish  synagogue.  From  these  he 
knew  that  the  Gospel  would  make  its  way  into  the 
smaller  places  and  the  outlying  country.  He  be- 
gan with  Asia  Minor,  then  planted  his  churches  at 
centres  in  Macedonia  and  Greece,  then  looked  be- 
yond to  Rome,  and  conceived  the  hope  of  reaching 

1  I    Cor.  iii.  4-6;  iv.  6. 

2  I    Cor.  X.  33. 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  129 

the  Pillars  of  Hercules.  And  he  not  only  under- 
stood method  in  evangelism,  but  he  clearly  appre- 
hended the  significance  of  unity.  His  earnest 
efforts  were  given  to  maintaining  the  unity  of  the 
faith,  and  securing  that  each  several  structure 
fitly  framed  together  with  the  rest  should  grow 
into  one  holy  temple.  But  we  nowhere  read  of  an 
external  unity  of  organization ;  Paul  fully  under- 
stood that  the  only  valuable  unity  is  unity  in 
Christ,  a  unity  not  of  form  but  of  feeling,  whereby 
the  increase  of  the  body  is  unto  the  building  up  of 
itself  in  love. 

On  a  different  side  one  of  the  most  marked 
traits  of  PauPs  mind  was  his  interest  and  success 
in  observing  the  workings  of  the  human  soul.  He 
knew  men,  by  a  power  of  direct  insight  into 
human  character,  using  often  as  interpreter  his 
own  consciousness.  The  arraignment  of  Jewish 
insincerity  in  the  second  chapter  of  Komans,  ''If 
thou  .  .  .  art  confident  that  thou  thyself  art 
a  guide  of  the  blind,  a  light  to  them  that  are  in 
darkness,  a  corrector  of  the  foolish,  a  teacher  of 
babes,  .  .  .  thou  therefore  that  teachest  an- 
other, teachest  thou  not  thyself?"  or  the  famous 
analysis  of  the  never  ending  moral  conflict  where- 
by for  ever  until  help  comes,  ''not  what  I  would 
that  do  I  practise,  but  what  I  hate,  that  I  do," 


130  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

will  illustrate  this.  But  equally  is  it  seen  in  his 
practical  advice  and  exhortation.  Paul  knew  the 
human  heart,  its  tendencies  and  its  possibilities. 
He  sees  where  the  strain  must  be  relieved,  as  in  the 
directions  about  marriage :  he  understands  when 
a  motive— gratitude,  or  pride,  or  the  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility—can be  evoked  to  do  the  work  that 
needs  to  be  done  in  the  man's  moral  progress. 

And  it  is  not  out  of  accord  with  this  quality  if 
the  third  characteristic  of  Paul 's  mind  to  be  men- 
tioned is  that  of  the  poet.  No  formal  verse,  but  a 
noble  rhetoric  of  nature  makes  a  fit  vehicle  of 
expression  for  Paul's  higher  flights.  The  hymn 
to  love  in  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  I  Corinthians 
is  a  classic  of  literature,  and  it  stands  by  no 
means  isolated  in  Paul's  Epistles.  Take  the  vast 
sweep  with  which  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  Romans 
his  mind  sees  the  whole  creation  sharing  in  the 
fall  and  redemption  of  the  world,  groaning  and 
travailing,  as  it  waits  for  the  revelation  of  the 
sons  of  God.  The  thought  was  not  new,  but  where 
is  the  picture  of  the  whole  process  so  vividly  con- 
ceived and  so  grandly  and  sonorously  expressed? 
Or  the  opening  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians, 
with  its  refrain  ''to  the  praise  of  his  glory,"  and 
its  long  vista  of  the  purpose  of  Him  who  worketh 
all  things  after  the  counsel  of  His  will,— what  is 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  131 

this  but  a  great  and  solemn  poem  which  celebrates 
the  grace  of  God  and  the  joy  of  those  who  know 
themselves  to  belong  to  Him?  At  every  moment 
of  exalted  feeling  Paul's  vision  is  clarified  and 
his  utterance  becomes  true  poetry.  Listen  to  his 
triumphant  cry,  ''When  this  corruptible  shall 
have  put  on  incorruption,  and  this  mortal  shall 
have  put  on  immortality,  then  shall  come  to  pass 
the  saying  that  is  written,  Death  is  swallowed  up 
in  victory.  0  death,  where  is  thy  victory?  0 
death,  where  is  thy  sting  ?  The  sting  of  death  is 
sin ;  and  the  power  of  sin  is  the  Law ;  but  thanks 
be  to  God,  who  giveth  us  the  victory  through  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. ' ' 

For  it  is  as  the  man  of  human  insight,  the  mys- 
tic, the  poet,  not  as  the  theologian— which  he  was 
not— that  we  must  read  and  understand  Paul.  He 
rose  to  visions,  he  had  intuitions,  he  knew.  If  he 
argued,  it  was  not  in  order  to  arrive  at  the  truth 
but  to  persuade  his  reader  of  truth  already  ap- 
prehended by  other  means  than  dialectics.  Here 
lay  his  genius,  and  the  source  of  his  power.  Has 
ever  a  man  been  so  misunderstood  and  shame- 
fully entreated  as  Paul,  out  of  whose  poetry  men 
have  made  the  propositions  of  a  logical  system? 
No  theologian  but  everywhere  a  Christian  was 
Paul.    His  faith  in  Christ  and  sense  of  union  with 


132  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

Christ  transformed  his  world.  His  hope  is  "that 
I  may  know  him,  and  the  power  of  his  resurrec- 
tion, and  the  fellowship  of  his  sufferings,  becom- 
ing conformed  unto  his  death ;  if  by  any  means  I 
may  attain  unto  the  resurrection  from  the  dead.*' 
*'It  is  no  longer  I  that  live,  but  Christ  liveth  in 
me."  In  these  words  the  source  of  the  poetical 
inspiration  is  made  clear.  Without  his  Christian 
faith  we  should  have  found  Paul  an  interesting, 
devoted,  and  conscientious  Jew;  his  devotion  to 
Christ  called  forth  his  surpassing  gifts  and  gave 
his  spirit  wings. 

We  long  to  know  something  of  the  personal  ap- 
pearance and  physical  characteristics  of  this  re- 
markable man.  The  traditional  type  of  his  por- 
trait, preserved  for  centuries  in  Christian  art,  has 
unhappily  no  claim  to  be  regarded  as  genuine. 
His  bodily  presence,  he  himself  says,  was  declared 
by  his  enemies  to  be  mean  and  contemptible.  He 
calls  himself  rude  in  speech,  but  probably  refers 
to  the  formal  rules  of  Greek  rhetoricians.^  Be- 
yond that  his  hints  hardly  go.  A  distressing 
bodily  infirmity  came  to  him,  and  persisted,  a 
minister  of  Satan  to  buffet  him,  a  thorn— or, 
rather,  "sharp  stake"— in  the  flesh,  he  calls  it.^ 
Some  have  thought  it  an  infirmity  of  the  eyes, 

111  Cor.  X.  10;  xi.  5. 
2  11  Cor.  xii.  7. 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL  133 

others,  with  perhaps  more  reason,  a  susceptibility 
to  epilepsy.    No  one  really  knows. 

In  the  second  century,  not  more  than  about  one 
hundred  years  after  Paul's  death,  some  one  wrote 
a  description  of  his  person— with  how  much  to 
base  it  on  we  can  not  tell.     It  is  found  in  the 
romantic   story   called   the   ''Acts   of  Paul   and 
Thecla,''  originally  part  of  a  larger  work,  the 
*'Acts  of  Paul,''  and  probably  written  in  Asia 
Minor,  where  a  recollection  of  Paul's  appearance 
may  well  have  been  preserved.  The  tale  is  relating 
Paul's  arrival  at  Lystra:— "And  he  saw  Paul 
coming,  a  man  small  in  size,  bald-headed,  bandy- 
legged, well  built,  with  eyebrows  meeting,  rather 
long-nosed,  full  of  grace.    For  sometimes  he  looked 
like  a  man,  and  sometimes  he  had  the  countenance 
of  an  angel/' 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY 

A  knowledge  of  Paul's  life  and  some  acquaint- 
ance with  the  more  striking  traits  of  his  mind 
and  character  is  essential  to  an  understanding  of 
his  thought.  For  Paul,  as  has  been  said,  was  no 
systematic  theologian.  Speculative  thought  con- 
stituted a  large  part  of  his  occupation,  but  there 
is  no  evidence  that  he  himself  combined  it  into  a 
system,  or  that  he  had  the  philosopher's  joy  in  a 
truth  for  its  own  sake,  and  in  constructing  a 
rational  and  comprehensive  explanation  of  the 
universe.  Not  system  but  vividness  and  vitality 
were  the  characteristics  of  his  thought,  and  these 
great  qualities  sprang  from  the  fact  that  his  con- 
sistent and  powerful  intellect  wrought  in  close 
intimacy  with  emotion,  an  emotion  always  intense, 
whether  it  were  tumultuous  or  calm.  This  inter- 
penetration  of  thought  and  feeling  is  made  the 
more  prominent  for  us  because  we  know  Paul 

solely    through    occasional    writings.      But    the 
134 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  135 

fundamental  cause  lies  deeper,  in  the  nature  of 
the  man  himself. 

The  perception  of  this  quality  must  govern 
and  guide  any  attempt  to  set  forth  Paul's 
theology,  as  it  should  govern  and  guide  the  contin- 
uous reading  of  his  epistles.  We  have  nowhere 
the  cold  dry  light  of  the  intellect,  but  everywhere 
the  warm  touch  of  a  man.  His  ideas  were  not 
developed  by  reason  of  an  interest  in  solving 
problems,  but  because  these  are  the  truths  that 
have  mastered  him  and  by  which  he  lives,  or  else 
such  as  he  deems  to  be  important  for  meeting  the 
special  situation  of  his  readers.  His  premises,  as 
we  shall  see,  are  not  established  by  argument,  but 
by  experience;  and  the  particular  subjects  which 
he  chooses  for  his  attention  are  mainly  determined 
by  the  practical  need  of  the  moment. 

Beside  the  fact  that,  even  more  than  most 
men's,  Paul's  theological  thought  can  only  be 
understood  through  a  knowledge  of  the  man  him- 
self, and  in  a  way  complementary  to  that  fact, 
stands  a  second  important  consideration.  Paul's 
theology  is,  to  be  sure,  highly  individual  and  per- 
sonal, but  at  the  same  time  much  of  it  was  not 
at  all  new.  Into  a  previously  existing  warp  he 
w^ove  a  Christian  w^oof.  He  was  in  no  sense  the 
medium  of  revelation  of  a  completely  new  system 


136  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

of  doctrine.  There  was  indeed  something  new, 
but  it  found  in  the  old  its  chief  means  of  expres- 
sion; and  throughout  the  whole  the  old  con- 
stantly reappears,  and  forms  a  permanent  back- 
ground without  which  the  Christianity  of  Paul 
as  we  know  it  could  not  have  come  into  existence. 
We  may  turn  to  almost  any  subject  of  Paul's 
thought,  whether  it  be  the  spiritual  monotheism 
on  which  the  whole  rests,  the  idea  of  the  promised 
Messiah,  the  notion  of  evil  beings  fighting  against 
God,  of  Adam  as  the  source  of  sin  and  death  in 
the  world,  of  the  eternal  judgment,— whether  it 
be  his  doctrine  of  righteousness,  of  justification, 
of  the  principles  of  morality;  we  shall  find  our- 
selves wholly  at  a  loss  to  understand  what  he 
means  unless  we  recognize  that  in  the  substratum 
of  his  ideas  he  merely  repeats  what  was  familiar  to 
all  who  knew  the  Old  Testament  and  the  Jewish 
thought  of  the  time. 

Here  lies  in  fact  a  large  part  of  the  difficulty 
which  the  Church  has  always  had  in  understand- 
ing Paul's  meaning.  Even  with  all  modern 
research  we  know  but  imperfectly  the  background 
which  controlled  his  ideas  and  the  form  of 
their  expression.  God  did  not  see  fit  to  reveal 
to  Paul  a  complete  theology  for  all  time,  which 
Paul    might    have    embodied    with    pedagogical 


PAULAS  THEOLOGY  137 

purpose  and  skill  in  occasional  epistles,  and 
which  we  by  careful  and  protracted  study  could 
then  reconstruct  in  its  divine  originality  as  a 
standard  for  ourselves  and  our  successors.  The 
case  is  rather  that  a  thoroughly  trained  Jew,  who 
had  at  his  command  both  the  theological  re- 
sources'of  the  rabbis  of  the  first  century  and  also 
the  treasures  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  who 
knew  something  of  the  Greek  world  whose  lan- 
guage he  spoke,  was  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God  to 
believe  that  in  Jesus  Christ  redemption  had  at  last 
been  brought  to  the  whole  world,  and  that 
through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  all  men's  cravings 
could  now  be  fully  satisfied.  In  the  light  of  that 
fundamental  conviction  he  gained  new  vision  on 
many  topics,  but  the  revelation  that  was  made  to 
him  was  rather  new  insight  and  new  life  than  a 
new  system.  Whatever  it  touched  it  vitalized; 
new  proportion  came  in,  and  new  emphasis,  big 
with  meaning  for  the  future,  and  a  new  element 
through  the  belief  in  a  fulfilment  already  realized, 
but  the  framework  of  the  old  system  chiefly  re- 
mained. 

But,  it  will  be  asked,  if  this  is  the  natural  mode 
of  approach  to  Paul,  how  about  the  Gospels?  Is 
not  Paul's  thought  merely  a  part  of  the  second 
chapter  in  the  history  of  Christian  thought?     Is 


138  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

it  not  the  duty  of  the  student  of  Christian  history 
to  form  first  a  clear  notion  of  the  teaching— the 
theology,  if  you  please — of  Jesus  Christ,  and  then 
to  show  how  this  earliest  stage,  through  its  own 
inherent  power  of  growth,  and  under  the  effect  of 
coincident  external  forces,  led  to  the  second 
great  stage,  the  thought  of  Paul? 

Now  the  relation  between  the  theology  of  Paul 
and  the  teaching  of  Jesus  presents  a  real  problem, 
to  which  various  answers  have  been  given.  B}^  the 
view  which  attributes  equal  divine  inspiration  to 
all  parts  of  the  Bible  it  is  held  that  the  ideas  of 
Paul,  in  so  far  as  they  touch  the  same  topics  as 
those  of  Jesus,  are  identical  with  them,  and  the 
two  sets  of  ideas  are  used  together  indiscrimi- 
nately as  bases  for  a  system  of  Biblical  or  of  New 
Testament  theology.  On  the  other  hand  a  modern 
view  has  gone  to  the  opposite  extreme.  Students 
have  been  so  impressed  with  the  obvious  differ- 
ences in  point  of  view,  main  subjects  of  attention, 
and  mode  of  conception  that  they  have  denied  that 
Paul's  thought  had  anything  to  do  with,  or  was  at 
all  influenced  by,  the  thought  of  Jesus.  Both 
views  are  wrong.  The  first  certainly  substitutes  a 
dry  framework  of  propositions  for  the  living  or- 
ganism of  individual  thought  and  interest.  The 
second  view  exaggerates  the  fact.    It  is  true  that 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  139 

we  have  in  Paul  but  little  reference  to  the  King- 
dom of  God,  the  main  subjects  of  which  he  speaks 
are  often  different  from  those  of  the  Gospels, 
there  are  strangely  few  sentences  which  can  be 
pointed  out  as  clearly  showing  the  influence  of 
Jesus'  language.  Yet,  while  all  this  is  true,  Paul 
plainly  shared  the  deepest  thought  of  Jesus  about 
the  nature  of  God,  as  gracious  Father,  about  God's 
attitude  of  love  to  the  world,  about  man's  oppor- 
tunity to  enter  at  once  into  the  privilege  of  purely 
spiritual  religion,  and  man's  duty  to  observe  a 
vigorous  morality  in  which  the  demands  of 
Jewish  law  were  summed  up  in  and  supplanted  by 
the  comprehensive  principle  of  love.  How  is  this 
to  be  explained  ? 

The  problem  is  one  of  the  hardest  in  all  the 
study  of  the  New  Testament.  The  secret  would 
seem  to  lie  in  the  remarkable  fact  that  Paul 
did  not  come  to  his  main  ideas  through  hearing, 
receiving,  and  meditating  upon  the  precepts 
and  parables  of  the  Gospels,  but  reached  them 
by  a  different  path.  Paul's  thought  is  not  a 
continuous  development  from  the  thought  of 
Jesus,  but  is  in  a  measure  a  new  start,  yet  so  con- 
trolled by  the  supreme  expression  of  Jesus'  nature, 
not  in  words  but  in  his  life  and  death,  that  it  is 
fully  dependent  upon  Jesus  and  in  fundamental 


140  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

harmony  with  him.  By  Paul's  conversion  he  was 
brought  not  to  the  Teacher  of  Galilee,  but  to 
Jesus  Christ  the  crucified,  now  risen  from  the 
dead,  and  Lord  in  heavenly  glory.  This  new  rela- 
tion led  to  surprising  results,  for  to  Paul's  pene- 
trating insight  the  relation  was  not  one  that  could 
be  merely  appended  to  the  older  system  of  his 
thought;  it  asserted  for  itself  dominance,  and 
required  that  in  its  light  the  whole  of  religious 
thought  should  be  reorganized.  Out  of  it,  and, 
as  it  were,  independently  of  the  tradition  of 
Jesus'  sayings,  came  the  harmony  with  Jesus' 
thought  that  we  have  recognized.  In  the  very 
name  Jesus  Christ,  which  Paul  now  accepted,  lay 
a  paradox,  for  it  meant  that  the  Messiah  of  God 
had  suffered  the  death  of  a  criminal;  and  in  the 
solution  which  Paul  found  for  this  paradox  was 
involved  the  great  change  in  the  deepest  springs 
of  his  thought.  He  came  by  his  conversion  to  see 
that  the  crucifixion  was  not,  as  the  Jews  thought, 
and  as  he  had  once  thought,  a  just  expression  of 
God's  wrath  against  an  impostor,  but  contained 
God's  gift  of  salvation  to  the  world.  From  that 
perception  he  could  proceed  to  the  rest  of  his  view 
of  God  and  of  God's  will  for  men.  For  this  rea- 
son, while  knowledge  and  some  use  of  the  say- 
ings of  Jesus  is  not  to  be  denied  to  him,  the 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  141 

great  thoughts  which  filled  his  mind  were  not  the 
direct  reproduction  and  following  out  of  the  most 
prominent  ideas  of  Jesus ;  they  were  rather  such 
ideas  as  gratitude  for  redemption  by  his  death, 
absorption  in  his  spiritually  present  person, 
knowledge  of  God  ''the  Father  of  Jesus  Christ," 
vision  of  the  possible  relation  of  redemption  to  all 
men,  of  its  significance  in  history  and  in  the  very 
framework  of  the  universe,  such  a  significance  that 
the  bearer  of  redemption  was  the  instrument  of 
creation  and  the  goal  of  all  human  life.  In  much 
of  this  speculative  thought  Paul  certainly  goes 
beyond  the  field  in  which  Jesus'  thought  moved, 
and  we  see  here  the  great  transition  to  Christian 
theology.  In  a  word,  Paul's  theology  was  built 
on  the  fact  of  Christ's  death  and  resurrection  and 
on  Christ's  person,  not  on  his  teachings.  That 
when  it  is  tested  by  a  comparison  with  Jesus'  say- 
ings, it  proves  to  be  an  adequate  interpretation  of 
Jesus,  may  well  illustrate  the  perfect  correspond- 
ence of  the  life  of  Jesus  with  those  sayings. 

"What  has  just  been  said  will  make  clear  the 
relation  between  the  ideas  of  Paul  and  those  of  the 
earliest  Jewish  Christians,  a  relation  both  of  con- 
trast and  of  resemblance.  As  we  have  seen,  the 
leading  ideas  of  the  first  Christians  at  Jerusalem 
were  continuous  with  the  thought  of  the  Gospels, 


142  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

and  they  dwelt  much  on  the  same  topics.  Yet  in 
the  nature  of  the  case  the  conception  of  Jesus  as 
Christ  and  Lord  in  heaven,  and  the  necessity  of 
explaining  why  God  permitted  him  to  be  crucified 
were  to  them,  as  well  as  to  Paul,  of  far-reaching 
consequence  in  bringing  in  new  modes  of  thought. 
Paul,  notwithstanding  his  vehement  disclaimers, 
must  have  been  influenced  by  the  ideas  of  those 
who  were  apostles  before  him,  but  the  originality 
and  freshness  of  his  mind,  and  the  distinctness 
and  profoundness  of  his  own  experience  gave  his 
thought  peculiar  elevation  and  permanent  fruit- 
fulness  and  influence. 

Having  thus  taken  note  of  the  fact  that  the  key 
to  an  understanding  of  Paul's  thought  lies  in  the 
combination  of  his  own  peculiar  individuality  with 
a  whole  previous  system  of  thought  in  which  he 
had  been  trained,  and  having  remarked  that 
Paul's  thought  does  not  represent  the  direct 
formal  development  in  a  straight  line  of  the  ideas 
on  which  Jesus  laid  emphasis,  but  rather  the  ap- 
proach to  those  ideas  from  a  new  angle,  we  are 
ready  to  consider  the  substance  of  Paul's  theo- 
logical thought.  Although  Paul  was  no  sys- 
tematic theologian,  he  yet  reflected  and  uttered 
himself  upon  many  of  the  topics  with  which  sys- 
tematic theologians  have  occupied  themselves.    Ac- 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  143 

cordingly  it  would  be  possible  to  present  his 
thought  by  constructing  a  complete  scheme  of  such 
topics,  and  letting  Paul  answer  formally  on  each 
one.  The  result,  however,  would  bear  but  a  dis- 
tant resemblance  to  Paul.  The  only  right  way  is 
to  strike  for  the  real  centre  and  view  the  whole 
in  company  with  Paul  from  that  post  of  ad- 
vantage. That  centre  in  Paul's  thought  is  the 
idea,  nay  not  the  idea  but  rather  the  fact,  of  Re- 
demption. 

Of  how  Paul  reached  the  characteristic  views 
which  we  find  existing  in  mature  form  in  his 
epistles  he  has  left  no  account.  This  is  to  be  re- 
gretted, for  it  is  just  here  that  fuller  knowledge 
would  most  further  our  understanding  of  the 
doctrines.  We  are  left  to  inference  and  to  the 
nature  of  the  case.  As  a  Jew  Paul  had  been  zeal- 
ous in  all  the  niceties  of  the  Pharisaic  religion. 
His  ideal  had  been  complete  devotion  to  the  will 
of  God  in  accordance  with  the  demands  of  an  ex- 
acting conscience,  and  we  are  not  to  think  of  him 
as  merely  cherishing  a  selfish  wish  to  secure  salva- 
tion by  conformity  to  an  externally  imposed  au- 
thority, but  as  having  a  real  and  enthusiastic  de- 
termination within  him  to  conquer  sin  and  to 
achieve  genuine  righteousness  of  character.  Then 
came  suddenly  his  conversion.    This  had  been  pri- 


144  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

marily  the  change  to  the  belief  that  Jesus  was  the 
Messiah.  But  we  have  seen  how  in  looking  back 
on  his  life  from  a  point  twenty  years  or  more  af- 
terward the  emphasis  had  shifted,  and  how  he  saw 
the  main  significance  of  his  conversion  to  lie  in  the 
deliverance  then  effected  from  the  condemnation 
Avhich  God  necessarily  pronounced  on  his  inade- 
quate moral  accomplishment;^  in  his  conversion 
he  gained  not  only  a  new  view  of  Christ,  but  a 
new  idea  of  God.  Thus  from  the  conviction, 
Jesus  is  the  Messiah,  which,  we  may  suppose, 
flashed  upon  him  in  his  vision  before  the  walls  of 
Damascus  with  self-evidencing  certainty,  Paul 
was  enabled  by  his  own  experience  to  proceed, 
first,  to  the  further  proposition  that  through  the 
death  of  Jesus  Christ  the  salvation  of  the  world 
is  accomplished,  and  secondly,  to  the  proposition 
that  if  men  believe  that  Jesus  is  Christ  and  Lord, 
God  forgives  their  sins  and  they  are  saved. 

The  former  of  these  steps,  from  belief  in  the 
messiahship  of  Jesus  to  belief  in  the  vicarious  ef- 
fect of  his  death  had,  it  appears,  been  already 
taken  before  Paul  by  the  original  Christians.  The 
death  of  this  alleged  Messiah  was  from  the  first  a 
stumbling-block  to  the  Jews  which  the  Christians 
also  must  have  felt  for  themselves.     They  over- 

1  Rom.  vii.  7 — viii.   4. 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  145 

came  it,  and  transformed  the  stumbling-block  into 
a  foundation  stone,  not  only  by  declaring  that 
Jesus'  death  was,  through  the  resurrection,  the 
portal  to  new  and  glorified  life  on  the  right  hand 
of  God,  but  by  presenting  the  death  itself  as  a 
direct  means  of  accomplishing  the  Messiah's  work 
of  bringing  salvation  to  God's  people.  In  doing 
so  they  had  the  aid  of  certain  sayings— impressive 
though  few— of  the  Lord  himself;  chiefly,  "The 
Son  of  Man  also  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto, 
but  to  minister,  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for 
many ; ' '  and  the  words  of  institution,  ' '  This  is  my 
blood  of  the  covenant,  which  is  poured  out  for 
many."  Moreover  the  view  of  Jesus'  death  taught 
in  these  sayings  was  made  easy  and  acceptable  to 
these  men  by  the  fact  that  the  higher  Jewish 
thought  had  already  perceived  the  great  and  true 
principle  that  suffering  may  be  vicarious,  not 
penal,  and  that  it  is  the  divinely  ordained  method 
of  service  in  this  world.  In  the  Book  of  Isaiah, 
chapter  liii,  this  perception  had  found  classic 
expression :  ' '  He  was  ...  a  man  of  sorrows 
and  acquainted  with  grief.  .  .  .  Surely 
he  hath  borne  our  griefs  and  carried  our  sorrows. 
.  .  .  .  He  was  wounded  for  our  transgres- 
sions, he  was  bruised  for  our  iniquities.  .  .  . 
The  Lord  hath  laid  on  him  the  iniquity  of  us  all." 


146  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

Here,  centuries  before  Christ,  the  suffering  of  the 
Servant  of  the  Lord,  in  whom  the  prophet  saw  the 
genius  of  the  nation  personified,  is  apprehended 
as  an  expiation,  or  means  of  securing  forgiveness, 
for  others'  sins.  In  other  Jewish  writings  the 
thought  of  vicarious  expiation  is  found.  Thus 
the  treatise  called  the  Fourth  Book  of  Maccabees 
says  of  the  Maccabaean  martyrs,  ' '  They  became  as 
it  were  a  vicarious  expiation  for  the  sins  of  the 
nation,  and  through  the  blood  of  those  godly 
men  and  their  atoning  death  divine  providence 
saved  afflicted  Israel. "  ^  So  the  rabbis  illustrated 
by  the  sufferings  of  Moses  and  Ezekiel  the  princi- 
ple that  the  sufferings  and  death  of  the  righteous 
make  atonement.  It  was  believed  that  here  is  a 
divine  law  of  the  universe,  and  by  the  application 
of  this  explanation  the  cross  of  Jesus  was  made 
not  the  refutation  but  the  proof  of  his  position 
as  Messiah. 

To  one  who  does  not  make  his  approach  from 
the  side  of  Jewish  ideas  of  expiation,  a  part  of 
this  step  which  the  early  Christians  and  Paul  took 
is  not  altogether  easy.  The  historical  significance 
of  a  vicarious  act,  or  of  vicarious  suffering,  in 
that  it  secures  results  for  the  benefit  of  another, 
is  clear  enough ;  and  the  real  efficacy  of  the  death 

1 IV  Maccabees  xvil.  22,  cf .  vi.  27-29. 


PAUL'S   THEOLOGY  147 

of  Jesus  in  the  establishment  of  the  Christian 
religion,  with  all  the  spiritual  and  temporal 
blessings  that  have  flowed  to  us  therefrom,  is 
easily  comprehended  as  the  supreme  demonstra- 
tion in  history  of  the  law  of  suffering  and  sacri- 
fice. But  Paul  held  that  the  death  of  Christ  was 
efficacious  not  merely  in  that  way,  as  an  agency 
of  redemption,  but  as  the  very  presupposition  and 
condition  of  God's  redemptive  activity  itself,  and 
as  making  possible  any  gracious  response  to  man's 
repentance;  and  how  this  can  be  is  less  easily 
comprehended.  An  explanation  or  justification  of 
this  connection,  which  he  believes  to  exist  between 
the  death  of  Christ  and  the  possibility  of  God's 
exercising  his  forgiving  love,  Paul  nowhere  under- 
takes to  give.  Is  it  fair  to  see  here  the  result 
of  the  process  by  which  through  the  thought  of  a 
God  needing  to  be  appeased  there  came  into  the 
faith  of  the  world  the  conception  of  a  God  who 
is  love,  the  Father  whom  Jesus  had  known  ?  May 
it  be,  as  some  one  has  put  it,  that  Paul  had 
not  fully  thought  through  and  clarified  the  funda- 
mental idea  of  God  at  which,  as  a  Christian,  he 
had  now  arrived?  Did  his  idea  of  God  contain 
surviving  elements  of  a  lower  stage  of  religion, 
wliich  he  was  able  to  overcome  only  by  means  of 
conceptions  that  lose  their  validity  when  the  pass- 


148  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

ing  away  of  that  whicli  tliey  neutralized  deprives 
them  of  their  function? 

Paul's  theology  is  certainly  not  susceptible  of 
rational  demonstration  to  the  modern  mind.  The 
most  that  reason  can  do  with  his  doctrine  is  to 
show  that  it  is  not  contrary  to  but  is  consonant 
with  rational  principles.  But  to  undergo  a  new 
inner  experience  is  the  privilege  of  genius,  or,  if 
you  prefer  (since  genius  is  but  the  human  organ 
whereby  divine  revelation  is  received),  it  is  the 
gift  of  God.  The  experience  is  real,  and  when  it 
is  once  attained,  and  shown  to  be  still  not  contrary 
to  reason,  we  for  our  part  can,  if  we  will,  enter 
into  and  reproduce  it.  It  has  been  well  observed, 
however,  that  the  particular  form  of  experience 
and  of  faith  which  Paul  had  is  not  for  every  man, 
not  even  for  every  Christian;  and  that  is  one 
lesson  of  the  long  history  of  the  Christian  religion. 

That  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ  was  not  a 
punishment  from  God  but  was  a  means  of  secur- 
ing the  salvation  of  men,  in  a  word  was  vicarious, 
must  have  been  from  the  first  an  essential  part  of 
Christian  apologetics  and  missionary  preaching. 
As  such  Paul  doubtless  heard  it;  and,  when  he 
became  convinced  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  he 
accepted  it  as  a  part  of  that  belief.  It  is  not 
strange  that  this  part  of  Christian  faith  gained 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  149 

in  his  view  of  Christianity  a  towering  and  su- 
preme importance.  Paul  knew  Christ  as  the  risen 
Lord  in  heaven,  and  the  one  fact  of  his  earthly 
life  so  conspicuous  as  to  outshadow  all  the  rest  was 
his  death.  Paul  staked  his  whole  apprehension  of 
the  meaning  of  Jesus  Christ's  person  and  work  on 
the  representative  significance  of  the  death  on  the 
cross  as  interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  resurrec- 
tion. 

By  this  method  of  approach  his  thought  made 
great  leaps.  He  was  not  dependent  on  the  toil- 
some study  of  the  implication  of  Jesus'  words, 
such  as  we  undertake.  He  was  not  subject  to  the 
doubtful  issue  of  the  earlier  primitive  Christian 
method,  which  added  observance  of  Christ's  pre- 
cepts and  the  hope  of  his  second  coming  from 
heaven  as  Messiah  to  the  customary  religion  of 
devout  Jews.  Paul  found  in  the  crucifixion  of 
Jesus  Christ  and  the  redemption  through  it  which 
to  his  mind,  if  Jesus  was  Christ,  could  alone 
account  for  the  crucifixion,  the  essence  of  his  gos- 
pel. This  interpretation  of  Jesus  Christ  involved— 
at  any  rate  to  the  notions  of  our  age,  with  our 
habit  of  inductive  reasoning — a  tremendous  risk, 
the  risk  of  a  complete  misapprehension  and  thus  of 
complete  failure.  Paul  never  recognized  this  risk, 
because  a  doubt  in  the  absolute  truth  of  his  gospel 


150  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

never  entered  his  mind  after  that  gospel  had  once 
been  formulated.  Only  by  the  essential  truth  of 
Paul's  gospel  can  I  explain  its  power;  but  it  was 
not  reached  by  proving  or  assuming  premises  and 
following  them  with  an  impregnable  logical  con- 
struction. In  the  hazardous  venture  of  Paul's 
faith  lay  the  possibility  of  securing  a  central  and 
radical  and  therefore  germinant  principle.  By 
following  his  independent  method  he  was  able 
freely  to  pursue  wherever  this  principle  led,  and 
wherever  men's  needs  called.  With  all  his  neces- 
sary subjection  to  ingrained  Jewish  habits  of 
thinking,  which  could  not  pass  away,  he  yet  by  his 
boldness  made  of  the  Gospel  no  longer  the  modifi- 
cation of  an  old  religion,  but  a  new  creation,  able 
to  stand  with  its  new  principle  and  to  conquer  the 
thought  of  the  world.  Paul  did  not  found  Chris- 
tianity; the  possibility  of  the  new  power  was 
given  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  if  Paul  had  not  done 
this  work  another  would  have  done  it  in  some 
other  way;  but  yet,  as  a  fact  of  history,  to  Paul 
belongs  the  lasting  credit  of  establishing  Chris- 
tianity on  an  independent  basis.  He  did  this  by 
casting  away  everything  else,  and  taking  his  stand 
solely  on  the  gospel  of  redemption  by  the  blood  of 
Christ.  The  second  step  which  Paul  took,  namely, 
the  advance  from  the  view  that  Jesus'  death  was 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  151 

a  vicarious  means  of  salvation  to  the  further  idea 
that  if  men  believe  that  Jesus  is  Christ  they 
secure  this  salvation,  we  shall  consider  later  on. 

The   chief   difficulty   in   understanding   Paul's 
thought  is  in  understanding  the  point  at  which  he 
starts.     AVhen  the  idea  of  redemption  by  the  death 
of  Christ  is  once  accepted,  and  its  central  posi- 
tion and  controlling  influence  recognized,  the  out- 
lines of  his  theology  become  clear.    His  language 
and  the  form  taken  by  his  thought  are  every- 
where influenced  by  his  study  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  by  the  theology  in  which  he  had  been 
trained,  and  some  knowledge  of  these  things  is 
requisite  for  understanding  Paul.     As  we  come 
to  know  more  of  these  matters,  uncertainties  in  our 
knowledge  of  Paul  are  being  gradually  removed. 
In  Paul's  doctrine  itself  it  is  worth  while  in  par- 
ticular to  observe  the  inward,  personal,  intimate 
nature  of  his  conception  of  salvation.    No  external 
application  of  welfare  imposed  from  without,  no 
mere  participation  in  a  new  epoch  of  comfort  and 
bliss,  no  mere  membership   in   the  body   of  the 
Messiah's  people  to  be  attained  when  the  day  of 
disclosures  and  of  division  shall  come,  would  have 
satisfied  his  needs.     The  longing  of  the  Psalmist, 
who  confesses,  *' Against  thee,  thee  only  have  I 
sinned  and  done  that  which  is  evil  in  thy  sight," 


152  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

and  entreats,  ^'Cast  me  not  away  from  thy  pres- 
ence; .  ,  .  restore  unto  me  the  joy  of  thy 
salvation,"  is  the  longing  of  Panl.  The  salvation 
he  desires  is  a  change  in  the  innermost  relation 
between  himself  and  God.  In  Paul,  as  to  some 
extent  in  the  author  of  the  nearly  contemporary 
Second  Book  of  Esdras,  thought  has  risen  to  a 
plane,— of  abstractness,  if  you  will,— where  spirit- 
ual processes  and  spiritual  relations  alone  are 
important,  and  the  concrete  materialistic  meta- 
phors of  popular  imagery  are  in  the  main  recog- 
nized as  purely  figurative.  We  cannot  affirm  as 
much  for  the  thought  of  the  main  body  of  Jews 
or  of  Jewish  Christians,  any  more  than  we  can 
for  the  thought  of  vast  masses  of  Christians 
throughout  the  ages. 

Paul's  distinctive  ideas  about  man,  God,  and 
Christ  appear,  as  has  been  already  remarked,  in 
connection  with  his  utterances  about  redemption. 
He  has  a  doctrine  of  man  as  the  subject  of  re- 
demption. His  view  of  God  is  revealed  by  his 
thought  about  redemption.  His  conception  of 
Christ  starts  from  the  idea  of  redemption.  What 
this  redemption  consists  in  we  shall  presently  see 
more  clearly. 

Apart  from  redemption  man  is  under  the  power 
of  sin,  whereby  even  when  he  would  do  good  evil 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  153 

is  often  present  with  him.  Not  total  but  universal 
depravity  is  Paul's  view  of  the  present  state  of 
the  human  race.  That  view  was  founded  on  the 
reproaches  of  his  own  conscience ;  and  it  w^as  con- 
firmed by  observation  of  the  Jewish  as  well  as  the 
gentile  world.  The  power  of  Sin  over  man  is  the 
natural,  though  not  necessary,  result  of  the  con- 
stitutional weakness  of  human  nature,  and  has 
been  established  by  the  long  series  of  generations 
in  which  men,  beginning  with  Adam,  have  sinned. 
But  sin  itself  is  in  Paul 's  view  the  act  of  the  indi- 
vidual, and  the  individual  is  responsible  for  it. 
The  attitude  of  God  toward  sin  is  expressively, 
but  metaphorically,  described  by  the  Old  Testa- 
ment term  ''wrath";  the  punishment  of  sin  is 
physical  death,  which  involves— except  redemp- 
tion and  resurrection  prevent— eternal  abode  in 
Hades  and  exclusion  from  the  light  and  joy  of 
God's  presence. 

Into  the  psychology  by  the  aid  of  which— with 
distinction  of  flesh  and  spirit— Paul  expresses  his 
view  we  need  not  here  enter,  important  as  an  un- 
derstanding of  it  is  for  the  understanding  of 
many  passages  of  Paul's  epistles.  The  relation, 
however,  of  Sin  to  the  Law  is  essential  for  our 
purpose.  The  Jewish  Law  meant  two  burdens; 
it  meant  the  burden  laid  on  a  sensitive  conscience 


154  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

by  the  requirements  of  morals,  and  it  meant  the 
burden  of  the  required  Jewish  observances  of 
washings  and  fastings  and  distinction  of  meats 
and  the  rest.  AYhen  Paul  speaks  of  the  Law  he 
means  both  these.  Now  the  whole  energy  of 
PauPs  life  while  a  Pharisee  had  been  thrown  into 
the  attempt  faithfully  to  observe  this  Law.  His 
fine  moral  sense  told  him  that  in  that  attempt  he 
had  failed.  He  came  later  to  see  that  in  con- 
centrating his  whole  being  on  observing  the  ordi- 
nances of  the  Law  he  had  missed  the  true  service 
of  God.  Hence  Sin  and  Law  seemed  to  him 
inextricably  united,  and  in  his  later  discussion  he 
declares— strange  as  it  appears  to  us— that  slavery 
to  the  Law  is  the  same  as  slavery  to  Sin,  The 
attempt  perfectly  to  obey  the  Law  leads  only  to 
despair. 

Such,  then,  is  the  situation  apart  from  redemp- 
tion, even  for  the  most  favored  man  of  all,  the 
Jew.  He  has  a  Law  to  observe,  and  knows  that 
the  perfect  observance  of  it  will  maintain  his  right 
relation  with  God  intact.  But  he  is  weak  and 
under  the  control  of  Sin,  and  the  Law  instead  of 
bringing  him  to  salvation,  simply  reveals  to  him 
by  its  clear  light  his  own  sinfulness,  or  even  (for 
so  far  does  Paul  go)  by  the  reaction  against  its  re- 
quirements positively  provokes  him  to   its  own 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  155 

violation.  Here  comes  in  Redemption.  Paul's 
conviction,  which  we  have  already  discussed,  that 
the  death  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  gift  of  God 
wherehy  men  are  saved,  brought  him  to  a  new  un- 
derstanding of  law.  If  salvation  has  thus  been 
given  by  God's  grace,  it  is  evident  that  God  does 
not  expect  men  to  earn  it  by  fulfilling  law.  In- 
deed he  has  not  given  the  Law  with  that  in  view, 
as  results  have  shown.  What  God  asks  is  only 
that  men  will  believe  that  Jesus  is  the  j\Iessiah. 
With  that  belief  comes  a  new  life  in  the  soul, 
which  leads  to  complete  redemption.  Paul  knows 
all  this,  not  because  he  can  prove  it  by  argument, 
which  he  nowhere  tries  to  do,  but  because,  the 
faith  having  been  revealed  to  him  with  divine  ac- 
creditment,  its  power  and  results  had  proved 
themselves  true  in  his  own  experience  of  peace. 
To  this  new  life  he  will  bring  all  men.  The  act  of 
Faith  which  initiates  it  is  within  man's  power. 

Here  we  have  no  structure  of  logic,  but  the 
product  of  a  combination  of  insight,  inference,  and 
experience.  By  trusting  to  the  full  his  gospel  of 
redemption  through  the  death  of  Christ,  Paul 
has  been  able  to  develop  in  detail  a  view  of  Chris- 
tianity externally  very  different  from  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  Christ,  but  in  its  inner  essentials  a  faith- 
ful interpretation  of  his  teaching  and  his  life. 


156  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

The  redemption  to  which  faith  introduces  man 
is  twofold,  both  from  the  so-called  wrath  of  God 
and  from  the  power  of  sin  which  occasioned  that 
wrath ;  or  in  other  language,  both  from  guilt  and 
from  moral  degradation  and  corruption.  The 
former  redemption  is  forgiveness,  the  latter  is  re- 
newal of  the  moral  forces  of  man's  nature.  Both 
are  needs  of  sinful  man;  both  are  included  in 
Paul's  thought.  Paul's  names  for  these  two 
aspects  of  redemption  are  sometimes  strange. 
Forgiveness  he  calls  justification.  It  is  the  same 
thing  as  atonement,  or  reconciliation,  terms  in 
which  somewhat  different  aspects  of  the  same 
process  are  emphasized.  In  this  process  we  be- 
come sons  of  God ;  and  since  God 's  attitude  is  now 
one  not  of  exaction,  but  of  favor  and  grace,  by- 
God's  act  of  receiving  us  our  responsibility  to 
obey  the  Law  as  law  is  wholly  done  away.  On 
this  side  the  redemption  is  complete  here  and 
now.  For  anxiety  or  despair  there  is  no  longer 
room.  The  problem  which  tormented  the  writer 
of  Second  Esdras,  as  it  had  tormented  Paul,  is 
solved  through  God's  forgiveness,  freely  offered 
to  every  man  who  will  accept  it. 

But  if  we  stopped  here,  we  should  merely  de- 
clare that  in  the  case  of  believers  God  disregards 
and  forgives  their  sin,   relieves  them  from  the 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  157 

burden  of  the  Law,  and  opens  to  them  complete 
freedom  from  all  restraint.  This  antinomianism 
would  in  no  sense  satisfy  the  man  whose  severe 
conscience  made  him  originally  feel  the  need  of 
redemption.  It  would  be  indeed  a  mere  confession 
on  God's  part  of  defeat  by  Sin.  In  fact,  Paul 
never  thinks  of  stopping  here.  Parallel  with  these 
objective  results  of  faith  of  which  we  have  spoken, 
—justification,  atonement,  reconciliation,  sonship, 
is  the  subjective,  inner  change,  not  merely  an 
alteration  of  the  soul's  status  and  relation  to  God, 
but  the  transformation  of  the  believer's  moral 
nature.  With  the  abolition  of  the  Law  the  chains 
of  Sin  are  broken.  In  its  place  stands  the  Spirit 
of  God,  which  enters  men's  hearts  with  power  to 
produce  new  fruits  of  righteousness.  With  the 
Spirit  comes  Christ,  and  in  union  with  Christ  the 
believer  is  transformed  so  that  he  cries,  ''It  is  no 
longer  I  that  live,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me. ' ' 

The  double  character  of  redemption  which  we 
have  been  observing  in  the  experiences  of  the  be- 
liever means,  of  course,  a  double  character  in  the 
work  of  Christ.  That  work  both  secures  justifica- 
tion (or  forgiveness)  for  sinners,  and  imparts 
new  powers  through  the  mystic  union  with  the 
Redeemer  into  which  the  believer  enters.  In  the 
former  aspect  it  is  expiatory,  and  this  character 


158  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

of  the  death  of  Christ  Paul  expresses  (as  he  does 
the  corresponding  experience  of  the  believer)  in 
many  ways  and  by  many  figures.  God  has  set  forth 
Christ  Jesus  as  a  propitiation ;  ^  Christ  became  a 
curse  for  us ;  ^  God  spared  not  his  own  Son  but 
delivered  him  up  for  us  all ;  ^  God  blotted  out  by 
the  death  of  Christ  the  bond  written  in  ordinances 
that  was  against  us.*  Since  Jewish  sacrifices  were 
nearly  always  expiatory,  atoning,  that  is  secur- 
ing forgiveness,  for  specific  transgressions  (usu- 
ally unwitting  breaches  of  external  ritual),  it  was 
natural  for  Paul  also  to  use  the  figure  of  sacrifice 
to  set  forth  the  expiatory  quality  of  the  death  of 
Christ.  He  does  so,  however,  explicitly  and  un- 
mistakably only  twice,^  the  more  notable  case  be- 
ing a  verse  from  Ephesians,  where  he  says  that 
Christ  ''loved  you  and  gave  himself  up  for  you, 
an  offering  and  a  sacrifice  to  God  for  an  odor  of 
a  sweet  smell.''  No  one  of  these  figures,— the 
sacrificial  metaphor  least  of  all— was  fundamental. 
Each  was  a  mode,  useful  for  the  moment,  of  mak- 
ing clear  the  meaning  that  through  the  death  of 
Christ  the  possibility  of  redemption  had  come 
to  men.     A  ''sacrificial  theology"  was  very  far 

iRom.  m.  25. 

2  Gal.  iii.  12. 

3  Rom.  viii.  32. 
"Col.  ii.  13-14. 

=  I  Cor.  V.  7  ;  Eph.  v.  2. 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  159 

from  Paul's  thought,  although  such  a  one  has 
grown  up  and  appeals  to  him  for  authority.  A 
theology  of  vicarious  expiation  was  what  Paul 
held,  but  that  can  exist  independently  of  the  idea 
of  ritual  sacrifice. 

To  Christ's  death  the  believer  owes  this  objective 
redemption  from  wrath  and  guilt;  to  union  with 
the  risen  Christ  and  to  the  presence  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  his  heart,  he  owes  the  inner  renewal  by 
which  alone  his  redemption  is  complete.  The  dis- 
tinction between  the  Spirit  of  God  and  the  spirit- 
ual heavenly  Christ  is  not  clearly  explained — nor 
apparently  made — by  Paul.  "We  seem  to  have 
two  parallel  lines  of  thought  relating  to  two 
aspects  of  one  and  the  same  inner  change.  In 
spiritual  union  with  Christ  the  believer,  so  it 
seemed  to  Paul,  shares  in  the  experiences  of  his 
Lord,  is  crucified  with  him  and  dies  to  sin,  is 
raised  to  new  life,  lives  not  in  himself  but  in 
Christ.  This  mystical  theology  evidently  played 
a  great  part  in  Paul's  dearest  thought,  and  it  re- 
appears over  and  over  again  in  his  epistles.  It 
all  relates  to  this  moral  re-creation.  This  phase  of 
Paul's  thought  has  only  in  part  established  itself 
in  popular  Christianity,  and  some  of  the  language 
still  sounds  strange  to  most  modern  ears.  It  may 
have  its  roots  in  conceptions  unrelated  to  Juda- 


160  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

ism,  but  current  in  the  East  and  in  Greece,  to  be 
traced  in  their  grosser  form  in  various  frenzied 
rites,  in  which  the  worshipper  identifies  himself 
with  the  person  of  the  deity.  Equally  important 
in  Paul's  doctrine  was  the  parallel  conception  of 
the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  whereby,  likewise, 
the  moral  renovation  is  effected.  This  idea  had 
come  by  a  purely  Hebrew  line  of  descent,  and  has 
proved  a  natural  and  satisfactory  mode  of  con- 
ception to  the  Church  in  all  ages, — and  never 
more  so  than  to-day. 

It  was  impossible,  in  Paul's  view,  that  his  gos- 
pel of  justification  by  faith  should  produce  moral 
laxity.  A  new  moral  power  was  a  part  of  the 
very  process,  and  faith  introduced  as  well  to 
righteousness  as  to  justification.  The  summary 
of  the  moral  life  was  Love,  The  formula  for  the 
relation  of  the  various  elements  is  "Faith,  work- 
ing [o?- made  effective]  through  love. "  Theoreti- 
cally this  would  come  about  by  the  necessity  of  the 
case;  in  practice,  effort  is  required  to  make  the 
possibility  real.  Paul  knew  the  need  of  motives  to 
stir  men,  and  used  them  in  great  variety.  His 
greatest  motive  is  gratitude  and  the  response  to 
privilege.  To  this  he  believes  the  moral  future  of 
mankind  can  be  trusted. 

In  this  double  redemption  through  the  death 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  161 

and  risen  life  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  formed 
Paul 's  Good  News,  lay,  he  held,  the  solution  of  all 
problems.  But  it  is  evident  that  it  is  not  primarily 
a  philosophy,  an  explanation  of  the  universe,  it 
is  primarily  the  recognition  of  the  historical  fact 
that  God  has  now  intervened  in  the  affairs  of  this 
world.  This  fact  attests  itself  by  an  inner  ex- 
perience, and  from  it  we  are  able  to  understand 
God  and  the  world.  Paul's  thought  of  God  and 
Christ  and  the  world  is  not  as  of  an  eternal,  un- 
changing organism,  whether  mechanical  or  biolog- 
ical. It  is  rather  always  that  of  a  moving  pano- 
rama. He  views  the  universe  not  as  static  but  as 
dramatic.  In  history  the  infinite  and  the  finite 
meet.  This  is  thoroughly  Jewish,  and  for  the 
religious  life  thoroughly  wholesome.  Contrast  it 
with  such  a  conception  as  that  sublime  system  in 
which  Plato  conceives  of  a  universe  of  ideas 
mounting  up  to  the  supreme  Idea,  which  is  God. 
The  difference  is  enormous,  and  the  contrast  re- 
veals the  peculiarly  unhellenic  character  of  Paul's 
view. 

One  necessary  and  extremely  important  practi- 
cal result  of  Paul's  conception  of  freedom  from 
the  Law  was  that  the  ceremonial  part  of  the 
Jewish  law  was  once  and  for  all  abrogated;  and, 
obviously,    under    Paul's    system    there    was    no 


162  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

method  of  restoring  it,  as  there  was  of  restor- 
ing the  moral  requirements,  which  were  all  carried 
over,  being  contained  in  the  principle  of  Love. 
Hence  the  Christian  religion  was  open  to  gentiles 
on  equal  terms  with  Jews.  If  faith  in  Christ  is 
all  that  is  needed,  that  is  as  easy  for  gentile  as 
for  Jew.  ''There  cannot  be  Greek  and  Jew,  cir- 
cumcision and  uncircumcision,  barbarian,  Scyth- 
ian, bondman,  freeman,  but  Christ  is  all,  and  in 
all."  This  observation,  which,  as  we  know,  Paul 
early  made  and  acted  on,  caused  violent  attack 
from  the  Jews.  Both  the  Jews  and  the  Jewish 
Christians,  when  these  formed  themselves  into  a 
distinct  party  within  the  Church,  hated  him. 
Their  attacks  on  his  work  called  out  his  reply  in 
Galatians ;  in  Romans  also  he  shows  how  his  mind 
continued  to  dwell  on  various  aspects  of  the  con- 
troversies thus  occasioned.  For  this  reason  we 
have  fuller  knowledge  of  Paul's  thought  on  these 
fundamental  subjects  than  on  some  others.  In 
Galatians  he  argues  that  the  Law  no  longer  holds 
in  any  of  its  parts,  and  that  this  doctrine  does  not 
in  any  way  imply  or  encourage  moral  laxity.  In 
Romans  he  expounds  consecutively  his  doctrine  of 
salvation,  so  as  to  show  its  adaptedness  to  human 
needs  and  to  cut  under  Jewish  attack,  buttressing 


PAUL'S   THEOLOGY  163 

it  positively  and  negatively  on  various  sides  by 
analogies,  demurrers,  and  denials. 

In  the  earlier  epistles  Paul  speaks  of  Christ 
mainly  with  reference  to  the  work  of  redemption. 
There  are  certain  indications  of  his  general  con- 
ception of  the  nature  and  person  of  Christ,  but 
they  are  not  full  or  elaborate.    In  later  years  con- 
troversy led  him  to  develop,  or  at  any  rate  more 
fully  to  set  down,  his  views,  and  in  Philippians, 
Ephesians,  and  Colossians  he  has  given  us  a  toler- 
ably complete  statement.    Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God,  being  existent  from  eternity  came  to  earth 
from  his  heavenly  abode,  and  after  the  experiences 
of  his  earthly  life  returned  to  heavenly  glory.   He 
was  throughout  one  person.    He  was  the  agent  in 
the  creation  of  the  world  as  he  has  now  become 
the  agent  in  the  redemption  of  men.     He  stands 
in  the  relation  of  reconciler  and  Lord  to  all  Be- 
ing.    This  last  idea  is  developed  in  the  course  of 
thinking  out  Christ's  contrast  and  superiority  to 
all  other  superhuman  beings  (of  whom  Paul  con- 
ceived that  there  were  many ) .   In  setting  forth  this 
doctrine  Paul  shows  the  influence  of  Alexandrian 
modes  of  expression;   the  shadow   is   contrasted 
with  the  reality,  the  Son  is  called,  as  was  the 
Logos,  the  '"'image"  of  God.     But  Paul  nowhere 
dwells  on  these  ideas.     They  are  taken  up  and 


164  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

used,  like  so  many  others,  without  forming  an 
integral  and  necessary  part  of  his  system.  It  is 
probable— though  the  translation  of  the  passage 
in  question^  is  somewhat  doubtful— that  Paul 
does  not  use  the  word  God  to  describe  Jesus 
Christ;  but  if  he  had  done  so,  it  would  cause  no 
difficulty  in  the  interpretation  of  his  system.  Any 
slightest  conflict  with  strict  monotheism  is  far 
from  his  thought,  but  Christ  is  a  wholly  super- 
human being,  even  though  he  appeared  on  earth  as 
a  complete  man.  Paul's  doctrine  led  directly  to 
the  reflection  which  produced  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  although  that  doctrine  is  not,  in  any 
proper  sense,  itself  found  in  Paul. 

In  the  doctrine  of  Christ  as  thus  developed  we 
have  a  pictorial  statement  of  two  ideas  which  can 
be  stated  more  abstractly :  first,  the  idea  that  both 
creation  and  history  find  their  explanation  in  re- 
demption ;  secondly,  the  idea  that  the  highest  com- 
munion man  can  have  with  God  is  through  the 
revelation  which  he  has  made  of  himself  in  his 
Son.  The  pictorial  form  is  a  valuable  and  true 
form ;  perhaps  it  is  not  a  necessary  form  for  all. 

The  Holy  Spirit  is  brought  by  Paul  into  rela- 
tion with  both  God  and  Christ.-     The  conception 

1  Rom.  ix.  5, 

2  For  instance  in  II  Cor.  xiii.  14  ;  Eph.  iv.   4-6. 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  165 

of  the  Spirit  as  given  to  Paul  by  the  tradition  of 
Jewish  thought  was  profoundly  altered  in  his 
hands,  and  became  the  rational  notion  of  a  divine 
transforming  power  in  the  moral  nature  of  men. 
Of  the  work  of  the  Spirit  as  understood  by  Paul 
and  the  part  which  the  idea  played  in  the  life  of 
his  churches  we  shall  hear  more  in  the  next 
chapter. 

Of  the  other  topics  of  Paul's  system  I  can 
speak  but  briefly.  Of  the  general  nature  of  God 
Paul  thinks  in  the  characteristic  manner  of  Jewish 
monotheism,  but  with  the  idea  of  fatherhood, 
which  was  current  among  the  Jews,  interpreted  in 
the  sense  of  Jesus  and  in  the  light  of  God's  provi- 
sion now  made  for  the  salvation  of  all  men.  God 
is  not  only  creator,  king,  and  judge,  but  redeemer. 

Eschatology,  or  an  outlook  to  the  future,  is 
necessary  to  any  \dtal  religion;  and  the  Jewish 
theology  out  of  which  Paul  came  was  strongly 
eschatological  in  cast.  The  Messiah  is  an  essen- 
tially eschatological  figure.  So  Paul  looked  for 
the  reappearance  of  Jesus  Christ,  and,  with  that 
event,  for  the  general  resurrection  and  judgment. 
Here,  as  in  the  doctrine  of  redemption,  Paul 
thinks  of  God's  universe  not  as  static,  but  as 
dramatic.  His  positive  interest  in  eschatology  is 
mainly  twofold :  first,  in  the  completion  of  redemp- 


166  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

tion  which  the  final  stage  of  history  will  bring  in, 
with  the  transformation  of  external  nature,  the 
beginning  of  permanent  conditions,  the  inner 
moral  perfecting  of  believers;  secondly,  in  the 
sanctions  of  morality  which  the  Last  Judgment 
provides.  Even  believers  are  subject  to  the  Judg- 
ment. Even  justification  by  faith  is  not  unquali- 
fied, but  depends  for  ratification  on  conduct. 

As  a  practical  worker  Paul  had  a  doctrine  of 
the  Church.  In  the  first  place,  the  Church,  which 
is  the  body  of  believers,  is  one  body,  and  in  an  al- 
most physical  sense  the  body  of  Christ  who  is  its 
head.  Local  congregations  were  wholly  discon- 
nected except  by  a  common  loyalty  to  an  apostolic 
founder  and  by  fellowship  and  friendly  Chris- 
tian sympathy.  For  gentile  and  Jew  the  relation 
to  God  is  identical.  But  the  unity  is  invisible. 
In  the  second  place,  the  Church  is  divine.  It  has 
entered  into  the  inheritance  of  the  old  Israel  as 
the  Congregation  of  God.  We  owe  our  places  in 
it  to  divine  ordinance,  and  this  should  stir  our 
enthusiastic  gratitude.  Here  come  in  Paul's 
strong  expressions  of  foreordination,  as  in  the  first 
chapter  of  Ephesians.  Paul  held,  as  did  the 
Pharisees  before  him,  to  the  sovereignty  of  God  in 
the  full  sense,  and  referred  everything  to  it.  But 
the  emphasis  in  his  thought  is  on  the  fact  that 


PAUL'S  THEOLOGY  167 

God  has  now  opened  wide  the  opportunity  of  sal- 
vation to  others  than  Jews,  not  on  the  reproba- 
tion of  the  rest.  What  Paul  has  in  mind  in  his 
statements  about  election,  is  the  relation  of  be- 
lievers to  God,  as  seen  from  within.  And  the 
divine  sovereignty  with  Paul  nowhere  tends  to 
exclude  man's  responsibility.  His  explanation  of 
the  difficulty  therein  contained  he  does  not  give. 

I  have  laid  stress  on  redemption,  or  salvation, 
as  the  central  point  in  Paul's  theology.  What, 
in  conclusion,  is  in  a  word  the  New  Life  to  which 
redemption  leads  ?  What  does  it  all  mean  ?  What 
makes  the  contents  of  salvation?  How  shall  we 
express  it  in  plain  language  ? 

Salvation,  according  to  Paul,  is  possible  for 
man,  in  essence  and  principle,  though  not  in  com- 
plete fulfilment,  here  and  now.  It  consists  in 
two  things,  the  assurance  of  forgiveness  for  sin- 
ners (which  is  a  very  different  thing  from  bald 
justice),  and  the  possession  of  new  powers  to 
choose  effectually  the  right.  Paul  holds  that 
neither  of  these  two  things  can  come  to  man  so 
long  as  he  thinks  of  God  mainly  as  the  source  of 
moral  law,  which  man  must  perfectly  obey.  They 
do  however  come  to  the  man  who  sees  Jesus  to  be 
the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  and  so  recognizes  that 
God  is  the  source  both  of  law  and  of  forgiveness. 


168  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

This  perception  and  recognition  is  faith.  It  is  not 
merely  an  act  of  the  intellect,  but  is  at  the  same 
time  a  choice  of  the  will,  which  puts  the  whole 
man  on  the  side  of  God;  and  it  brings  in  response 
to  grateful  love  new  and  mysterious  forces 
to  occupy  the  believer's  soul.  The  believer 
in  Jesus  Christ  is,  in  Paul's  view,  sure  that 
forgiveness  has  taken  the  place  of  wrath;  that 
is  what  belief  itself  means,  and  it  is  confirmed  by 
the  resulting  peace  and  joy.  He  is  also  given 
such  inner  aid  that  out  of  his  faith  flows  love. 
The  result  is  a  life  of  freedom  in  faith,— free- 
dom from  bondage  to  a  law  that  was  never  ful- 
filled, freedom  from  servitude  to  sin  that  sepa- 
rates from  God.  In  place  of  discouragement  and 
despair  comes  confidence ;  in  place  of  degradation 
there  is  progress. 

Paul  is  the  apostle  of  freedom  and  optimism 
for  all  time,  because,  not  through  logical  inference 
but  by  a  revelation  and  by  a  fact  of  experience, 
he  came  to  know  that  in  the  cross  of  Jesus  Christ 
the  gift  of  this  salvation  had  been  made  to  the 
world.  AYherever  Paul  is  studied  or  loved,  we 
find  freedom  and  hope,  and  so  a  power  of  moral 
enthusiasm  and  an  incentive  to  theological 
progress. 


VI 

LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 

"We  have  already  looked  at  the  type  of  Chris- 
tian life  which  formed  itself  and  persisted  for 
some  time  in  Palestine,  and  we  have  seen  that  it 
did  not  form  the  basis  for,  nor  exert  a  controlling 
influence  upon,  the  Christian  life  of  the  Church 
throughout  the  world.  The  churches  which  con- 
trolled early  Christianity  were  not  Jerusalem, 
but  Antioch,  Asia  Minor,  Corinth,  Eome,  south- 
ern Gaul. 

We  have  also  looked  at  the  theology  of  the 
great  Apostle  Paul.  But  his  mighty  genius  al- 
ways stood  somewhat  removed  from  the  common 
level  even  of  Christians  who  reverenced  his 
name.  He  was  at  once  too  Jewish  in  his  mode  of 
thought  and  form  of  expression  to  be  fully  un- 
derstood by  plain  men  trained  in  other  schools, 
and  too  daring  in  his  flights  of  noble  speculation 
to  be  followed  by  lesser  spirits.  The  common  run 
of  gentile  Christianity  was  not  Jewish,  and  was 
only  in  a  limited  degree  Pauline.  In  the 
169 


170  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

average  Christianity,  indeed,  of  the  apostolic  age 
we  shall  not  look  for  what  can  properly  be  called 
a  type  of  theology  wrought  out  as  a  consistent 
body  of  doctrine.  What  most  interests  us  is  rather 
the  conditions  of  its  inner  and  outer  life,  its 
forms  of  organization  and  worship,  its  dangerous 
tendencies,  its  relation  to  the  world  outside.  These 
aspects  of  early  Christianity  we  need  to  under- 
stand, in  order  both  to  see  the  meaning  of  much 
of  the  New  Testament  and  to  comprehend  prop- 
erly the  later  history  of  the  Christian  Church 
and  of  Christian  theology.  In  studying  the  life 
of  the  gentile  churches  of  this  period  we  have  to 
look  mainly  at  the  churches  founded  by  Paul,  be- 
cause our  information  necessarily  comes  mainly 
from  his  letters  to  such  churches ;  we  can  believe, 
however,  that  these  churches  fairly  represent 
those  others  in  similar  places  which  other  apostles 
had  founded. 

It  is  worth  while  in  beginning  our  study  to  ob- 
serve that  the  possibility  of  forming  such  a  pic- 
ture as  that  at  which  we  aim  is  one  of  the  most 
important  tests  of  the  trustworthiness  of  our 
knowledge  of  the  apostolic  age.  If  we  can  gain 
from  the  indications  of  our  sources  an  entirely 
clear  and  consistent  account  of  the  life  of  the 
period,  we  have  in  that  fact  one  of  the  strongest 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    171 

possible  arguments  against  those  who  deny  the 
value  of  our  sources  for  the  history  of  the  period 
to  which  they  purport  to  relate. 

We  may  look  first  at  the  inner  life  of  these 
Christian  churches  in  the  gentile  world.  Apart 
from  the  general  influences  which  must  at  all 
times  affect  any  Christian  church,  because  they 
pertain  to  the  nature  of  such  an  organization, 
certain  special  circumstances  combined  to  give 
these  churches  a  distinctive  character.  In  the 
first  place  they  formed  a  very  small  body  in  the 
midst  of  a  large  world.  In  the  nature  of  the  case 
they  were  separatists.  That  they  had  the  merits 
and  defects  of  such  a  group,  thrown  in  on  one 
another,  cut  off  from  the  world,  is  plain  from 
Paul's  epistles  and  the  practical  directions  with 
which  they  were  filled.  It  is  the  life  of  a  great 
family  to  which  his  instructions  relate,  with  its 
charm  and  its  dangers.  This  same  fact  explains 
the  ideals  of  the  Christians  themselves.  Not  to 
influence  the  world  by  pervading  and  transform- 
ing its  social  order,  but  to  form  a  group  apart 
where  the  virtues  of  individuals  should  be  culti- 
vated in  the  soil  of  religion,  and  which  should 
attract  one  and  another  from  the  evil  world  with- 
out, was  the  aim  which  they  set  themselves.  Hence 
they  did  not,  even  when  they  were  individually 


172  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

fitted  to  do  so,  enter  into  the  world  of  literary 
culture,  of  art,  of  public  life.  Many  of  these 
pursuits  were  closed  to  them  because  of  their 
connection  with  heathen  customs.  But  even  had 
this  not  been  the  case,  the  early  Christians  would 
have  withdrawn  from  them  into  the  circle  of 
their  own  life  and  interests.  The  outside  world 
looked  on  the  Christians  as  social  and  religious 
anarchists;  and  the  judgment  was  not  altogether 
unjust.  The  Christians  had  a  new  foundation 
for  their  life,  and  did  not  need  to  share  in  the 
world's  society;  and  like  other  compact  bodies 
they  had  never  a  doubt  that  their  own  cause 
was  the  cause  of  God  and  their  own  future 
secure. 

A  second  controlling  influence  for  their  thought 
and  life  was  the  expectation,  which  was  univer- 
sally cherished,  of  a  speedy  end  to  the  present 
order  of  things,  to  be  brought  about  by  the  end 
of  this  world,  the  return  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  the 
Day  of  Judgment.  In  this  group  of  ideas  the 
Jewish  point  of  view  which  Christianity  brought 
into  the  minds  of  men  is  very  apparent.  The 
Jews  had  conceived  of  all  time,  from  the  eternity 
of  the  past  to  the  eternity  of  the  future,  as 
divided  into  two  ages,  *'the  present  age"  and 
"the   coming   age,''   separated   by   the   Day   of 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    173 

Judgment  and  the  coming  of  the  Messiah  and 
the  other  connected  events  belonging  to  the  en- 
trance upon  eternal  life.  This  conception  went 
over  into  Christianity,  with  the  difference  that 
the  Christians  knew  the  Messiah,  in  the  person 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  the  consequent  differ- 
ence that  his  expected  coming  (or  ''parousia'') 
was  not  his  first  coming  but  would  be  his  re- 
turn to  consummate  his  work.  Jesus  himself 
had  thus  used  the  imagery  of  Jewish  thought  to 
set  forth  his  expectation  of  the  future.  Under 
these  figures  he  had  seen  the  coming  triumph 
of  God's  cause,  the  establishment  of  God's  rule 
in  the  world,  the  goal  of  history.  How  far  he 
presented  to  himself  this  future  as  to  come  about 
actually  in  the  material  forms  of  the  imagery 
which  he  used;  how  far  he  consciously  recog- 
nized that  it  was  metaphor  and  trope  we  shall 
never  know.  He  was  in  the  habit  of  transform- 
ing the  old  terms  and  figures  by  his  wider  vision 
and  deeper  insight  and  by  his  sure  emphasis  on 
the  real,  the  ethical,  the  eternal.  We  may  well 
believe  that  here,  too,  that  was  the  case.  Only 
we  must  beware  of  stripping  Jesus'  thought  of 
that  which  gave  it  its  distinction,  and  reducing 
it  to  the  empirical  commonplace  of  our  own 
notions. 


174  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

It  seems  clear,  moreover,  that  Jesus  had  taught 
not  only  that  he  should  return  at  the  end  of  this 
age,  but  also  that  the  end  of  this  age  and  his 
return  would  come  speedily,  even  within  the  life- 
time of  the  present  generation.  In  this  expectation 
the  earliest  Christians,  strengthened  by  the  resur- 
rection  appearances,  had  reorganized  their  life  at 
Jerusalem ;  it  was  in  this  hope  that  Paul  lived ;  and 
within  the  limits  which  it  set  his  thought  moved 
and  the  life  of  the  gentile  churches  was  developed. 
Paul  himself  expected  to  live  on  earth  to  see  the 
end  of  the  world,  and  he  had  to  explain  to  the 
Thessalonians  that  not  only  those  who  should  sur- 
vive until  that  time  but  also  those  believers  who 
might   die   in   the   interval   would   all    share   in 
the  blessings  of  the  great,  but  not  at  all  far-off, 
divine  event  to  which  the  whole  creation  moves. 
A  touching  evidence  of  the  general  expectation 
is  to  be  seen  in  the  words  of  the  unknown  au- 
thor of  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter,  who  speaks 
of  those  who  say,  ''AYhere  is  the  promise  of  his 
coming?  for,  from  the  day  that  the  fathers  fell 
asleep,  all  things  continue  as  they  were  from  the 
beginning  of  the  creation." 

Now  it  is  plain  that  if  a  body  of  men  and 
women  live  with  so  short  a  vista  of  the  world's 
future   before  them,   that   fact   will   profoundly 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    175 

affect  their  whole  life.  If  the  time  is  so  short, 
it  is  not  worth  while  to  lay  foundations  for  a 
distant  posterity,  to  rear  a  new  Christian  gen- 
eration that  shall  regenerate  the  world  by  grow- 
ing up  into  it,  to  provide  for  education,  to  es- 
tablish institutions,  to  enter  into  the  general 
interests  of  the  world's  life,  all  which  is  des- 
tined speedily  to  pass  away.  Only  those  con- 
cerns that  relate  directly  to  the  eternal  life  will 
seem  real;  all  else  will  be  wholly  subordinate, 
or  even  seem  to  be  a  deterrent  from  the  great 
interests  of  the  soul.  Under  such  conditions  what 
we  recognize  as  the  healthy-minded  Christian  at- 
titude toward  human  society,  work,  career,  is  im- 
possible. No  fundamental  ascetic  principle  is 
necessary  in  order  to  explain  the  ascetic  precepts, 
and  the  apparently  ascetic  omission  of  certain 
interests,  which  we  find  in  Paul  and  in  early 
Christian  life.  These  things  were  inevitable  so 
long  as  the  outlook  into  the  future  remained  thus 
contracted. 

Yet  it  must  not  be  said  that  this  mistake,  as 
we  must  call  it,  was  an  evil.  It  concentrated 
the  minds  of  Christians  on  those  things  that  are 
eternal,  and  must  have  proved  a  moral  motive 
of  great  intensity.  It  gradually  faded  under  the 
teaching    of   history,    and    its   modern    counter- 


176  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

part  has  never  controlled  the  thought  and  life 
of  any  great  body  of  Christians,  nor  led  many 
far  astray. 

A  third  inner  characteristic,  more  important 
than  either  of  the  other  two  that  I  have  men- 
tioned, was  what  is  sometimes  called  the  ''enthu- 
siasm" of  the  early  Christian  churches.  By  this 
is  meant  their  sense  of  immediate  divine  in- 
spiration; and  this  must  lead  us  to  consider  the 
ancient  idea  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  Spirit  of  God  is  a  Hebrew  idea  w^hich  had 
had  a  long  history  and  a  wide  range  of  applica- 
tion. It  meant  ''God's  power  and  agency  mani- 
fest," or  "God  exerting  power,"  and  the  presence 
of  the  Spirit  was  known  by  the  possession  of 
power  to  do  anything  unusual,  provided  that 
power  were  apparently  derived  from  God.  This 
conception  held  of  all  sorts  of  unusual  power. 
The  classical  instance  is  that  of  Bezalel  the  son 
of  Uri,  of  whom  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,  "I 
have  filled  him  with  the  Spirit  of  God,  .  .  . 
to  devise  skillful  works,  to  work  in  gold  and 
in  silver  and  in  brass,  and  in  cutting  of 
stones  for  setting,  and  in  carving  of  wood, 
to  work  in  all  manner  of  workmanship."^ 
The  superhuman  energy  of  Othniel,  of  Jephthah, 

1  Exodus  xxxi.  2-5. 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    177 

of  Samson  when  he  slew  the  lion,  or  the  strange 
religious  frenzy  of  Saul  prophesying  and  lying 
naked  a  day  and  a  night,  are  all  ascribed  to 
the  working  of  the  Spirit.  In  the  higher  thought 
the  Spirit  was  active  in  the  utterances  of  the 
prophets,  in  the  work  of  the  king,  in  the  equip- 
ment of  the  Messiah.  To  these  ideas  the  Chris- 
tians fell  heir.  The  Holy  Spirit,  or  the  Spirit 
of  God,  was  to  them  the  source,  not  indeed,  so 
far  as  we  know,  of  unusual  powers  of  handicraft 
or  strength,— the  time  for  that  had  passed,— but 
of  all  unusual  phenomena  which  could  in  any 
way  be  connected  with  religion.  The  perception 
of  religious  truth,  and  the  power  to  heal  the 
sick,  exaltation  of  mind  bursting  forth  into  psalm 
or  song  or  public  address,  the  capacity  to  deal  ef- 
fectively with  the  business  of  the  congregation, 
ecstatic  utterance  in  unintelligible  sounds,  and 
prophecy  and  visions,  all  were  alike  believed  to 
show  the  presence  of  God's  Spirit  in  the  Church. 
The  Christians  believed  that  a  new  outpouring 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  characterized  their  common 
life,  and  they  found  in  this  baptism  with  the 
Holy  Spirit  a  chief  difference  between  the  move- 
ment initiated  by  John  the  Baptist  and  Chris- 
tianity. "I  baptized  you  in  water,  but  he  shall 
baptize  you  in  the  Holy  Spirit.*' 


178  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

This  exalting  sense  of  the  immediate  inspira- 
tion of  God  is  a  fundamental  trait  of  the  life  of 
the  earliest  Christians.  It  is  referred  to  fre- 
quently in  the  epistles  of  Paul.  It  carried  them 
on  in  the  face  of  hardship  and  persecution,  it 
supported  their  confidence  in  the  divine  origin 
of  Christianity,  to  the  preaching  of  which  by 
them  that  heard  God  himself  had  borne  "wit- 
ness with  them  both  by  signs  and  wonders,  and 
by  manifold  powers,  and  by  gifts  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  according  to  his  own  will."  It  provided 
a  series  of  new  Christian  authorities,  the  proph- 
ets who  spoke  and  the  teachers  w^ho  taught 
in  the  Church.  In  one  of  the  letters  of  Ignatius, 
bishop  of  Antioch,  written  just  after  the  open- 
ing of  the  second  century,  we  have  a  concrete 
and  vivid  glimpse  of  the  action  of  the  Spirit 
at  a  Christian  meeting.  He  says  ''The  Spirit 
.  .  .  searcheth  out  the  hidden  things.  I  cried 
out,  when  I  was  among  you;  I  spake  with  a  loud 
voice,  with  God's  own  voice.  Give  ye  heed  to 
the  bishop  and  the  presbytery  and  deacons.  Now 
there  were  those  who  suspected  me  of  saying  this 
because  I  knew  beforehand  of  the  division  of 
certain  persons.  But  he  in  whom  I  am  bound  is 
my  witness  that  I  learned  it  not  from  flesh  of 
man ;  it  was  the  preaching  of  the  Spirit."  ^ 

1  Ign.  Phil.  vii. 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    179 

All  this  is  distinctly  characteristic  of  the  apos- 
tolic age,  on  the  Jewish  and  gentile  sides  alike, 
and  the  end  of  the  period  is  marked  by  a  change 
of  profound  significance  when  books,  officers,  ex- 
ternal authority,  fixed  forms,  were  substituted 
for  the  Spirit  working  with  visible  power  in 
this  material  and  physical  sphere.  Such  scenes 
as  these  which  Paul  and  Ignatius  portray  grew 
less  and  less  frequent,  as  the  distance  from  the 
apostolic  age  increased.  Out  in  the  world,  feel- 
ing the  necessity  of  firmer  organization,  and  ex- 
posed to  the  influence  of  Greek  thought,  the 
Church  had  to  lose  its  age  of  enthusiasm,  as  it 
hardened  and  matured  itself  for  the  struggle 
that  lay  before  it. 

Of  the  spiritual  gifts  of  the  apostolic  church 
we  learn  chiefly  through  Paul,  and  mainly  be- 
cause of  occasions  where  this  enthusiastic  temper 
revealed  its  shadier  side.  The  exaltation  of  hu- 
man faculties  under  religious  excitement,  and  es- 
pecially, as  was  here  necessarily  the  case,  of  more 
or  less  abnormal  faculties,  was  attended  with 
disorders  that  required  Paul's  thought  and  care- 
ful correction.  He  himself  valued  these  spirit- 
ual gifts.  The  ecstatic  and  unintelligible  speech 
which  he  calls  "speaking  with  tongues"  he  him- 
self practised,  and  likewise  prophecy  and  heal- 


180  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

ings  and  the  rest.  He,  too,  believed  these  phe- 
nomena to  be  the  exhibition  of  God's  Spirit  work- 
ing in  men.  But  he  held  the  gifts  to  vary  in 
worth  just  in  proportion  as  they  were  useful 
to  the  Church;  and  he  held  another  view  which 
has  gradually  made  its  way  in  the  control  of 
Christian  thought,  and  constitutes  perhaps  his 
greatest  single  contribution  to  that  thought.  He 
held,  namely,  that  every  believer  without  excep- 
tion possesses  the  Spirit  of  God,  whether  that 
Spirit  manifests  itself  in  physical  phenomena, 
and  special  powers  of  mind  and  body,  or  not. 
His  corollary  to  these  two  principles  was  that 
the  most  significant  manifestations  of  the  Spirit 
are  the  graces  of  character  which  Christian  faith 
is  sure  to  engender  in  the  Christian 's  soul.  * '  The 
fruit  of  the  Spirit,"  he  says,  "is  love,  joy,  peace, 
long-suffering,  kindness,  goodness,  faithfulness, 
meekness,  self-control. ' ' 

Of  the  evils  which  had  to  be  corrected  we  read 
in  I  Corinthians  and  I  Thessalonians.  Possessors 
of  the  more  conspicuous  spiritual  gifts  set  them- 
selves up  arrogantly  as  superior  to  their  humble 
brethren.  The  fault  was  all  the  worse  because 
these  prominent  and  startling  gifts  were  apt  to 
be  the  ones  least  valuable  for  the  edification  of  the 
Church,  however   useful  they  might  be  to  the 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    181 

private  life  of  the  bearers  of  them.  But  not 
only  arrogance,  but  also  disorderliness  in  the 
meetings  grew  out  of  these  things,  and  Paul  is 
at  pains  to  regulate  the  order  of  procedure,  so 
that  the  impetuous  speakers  may  be  restrained 
from  presenting  their  God  in  the  aspect  of  a 
God  not  of  peace  but  of  confusion. 

One  other  interesting  problem  was  raised  by 
the  new  "enthusiasm,"  that  of  the  proper  be- 
havior of  women.  The  Gospel  knew  neither  male 
nor  female,  as  it  recognized  neither  Jew  nor 
Greek,  but  only  the  new  creature  in  Christ  Jesus. 
It  is  evident  that  under  this  new  freedom  and 
in  the  excitement  of  religious  emotion  the  women 
of  the  Corinthian  church  had  thrown  aside  some 
of  the  customs  of  ordinary  society,  and  had  also 
put  themselves  forward  in  the  meetings  of  the 
Christians.  It  was  the  immediate  result  of  the 
sense  that  every  believer  possesses  directly  the 
Holy  Spirit.  Paul  settles  the  question  adversely 
to  the  women,  and  this  was  doubtless  the  wise 
course  in  the  emergency,  but  he  makes  his  con- 
servative decision  by  the  application  of  principles 
which  seem  to  us  neither  self-evident  nor  yet 
drawn  by  necessary  inference  from  the  doctrines 
of  Christianity.  And  Paul  himself,  although  sure 
of  his  practical  advice,   seems   not  to  be   with- 


182  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

out  some  scruples  in  insisting  on  the  order  of 
inferiority  which  he  names:  God,  Christ,  man, 
woman;  while  he  closes  his  argument  with  an 
appeal  to  common  custom.^ 

These  three  circumstances,  the  smallness  of 
the  churches  in  the  midst  of  a  great  world,  the 
expectation  of  a  speedy  end,  and  the  enthusiastic 
sense  of  immediate  and  universal  inspiration,  had 
thus  a  profound  influence  on  the  inner  life  of 
the  churches.  The  last  of  them  was  not  without 
its  serious  dangers. 

But  these  difficulties  at  which  we  have  glanced, 
and  which  early  called  for  Paul's  attention,  were 
not  the  only  dangers  which  beset  the  apostolic 
age.  The  epistles  of  Paul  are  largely  occupied 
with  guarding  against  evil  tendencies  arising 
spontaneously  from  within  the  churches,  or 
brought  to  them  from  without.  Of  moral  dangers 
there  were  two,  laxity  and  asceticism.  These  are 
two  faults  which  might  seem  to  exclude  each 
other,  but  in  practice  often  coexist  side  by  side 
in  the  same  persons.  Of  the  danger  of  moral 
laxity  we  have  appalling  evidence  in  every  one 
of  Paul's  epistles.  The  grossest  vices  of  the  flesh 
of  nearly  every  kind  were  pressing  temptations 
to  Christians  whom  Paul  was  able — and  no  doubt 

1  I  Cor.  xl.  1-16. 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    183 

with  sincerity— to  congratulate  on  their  faith 
and  love,  their  enrichment  in  Christ  and  their 
enlightenment.  We  must  remember  the  standards 
of  the  lower  classes  in  a  Greek  city  in  the  first 
century,  and  we  need  not,  alas,  go  far  out  of 
our  w^ay  to  find  modern  parallels  to  what  was 
prevalent  in  those  corrupt  seats  of  passion  and 
selfishness.  There  can  be  scarcely  any  stronger 
exhibition  of  the  morally  regenerating  power  of 
Christian  faith  than  to  observe  how  from  the 
end  of  the  first  century  of  our  era  the  moral 
purity  not  only  of  Christian  ideals  but  of  Chris- 
tian accomplishment  was  a  characteristic  of  the 
Christian  body  pointed  to  by  the  apologists,  and 
recognized  with  admiration  by  the  world  and  the 
philosophers. 

The  danger  of  asceticism  is  met  with  in  various 
parts  of  the  world.  The  Epistle  to  the  Colossians 
is  largely  occupied  with  argument  against  a  cer- 
tain type  of  thought  then  current  in  Phrygia. 
It  evidently  included  precepts  about  meat  and 
drink— ''Touch  not,  taste  not,  handle  not" — 
which  were  abhorrent  to  Paul's  ideas,  and  seemed 
to  him  to  threaten  a  false  view  of  the  significance 
of  spiritual  religion  itself;  and  connected  with 
these  w^as  a  basis  of  speculation,  in  his  view  more- 
dangerous  still,  because  it  not  only  implied  the 


184  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

essential  evil  of  material  things,  but,  by  introduc- 
ing other  angelic  objects  of  worship,  deposed 
Jesus  Christ  from  his  supreme  position  in  the 
universe.  Asceticism  is  always  the  enemy  of 
faith  in  a  good  God  who  has  created  the  world, 
and  these  ideas  became  one  of  the  great  dangers 
of  Christianity  in  the  following  period.  Like- 
wise, almost  at  the  opposite  geographical  extreme 
from  ColossEe,  we  find  Christians  at  Eome  who, 
under  the  influence  of  some  type  of  Greek  ascetic 
thought,  had  taken  up  total-abstinence  from  wine 
and  from  animal  food. 

A  different  danger  was  that  of  the  breaking 
up  of  the  Christian  Church  into  sects.  We  have 
seen  how  the  danger  of  a  schism  between  Jewish 
and  gentile  Christianity  was  averted  through 
the  breadth  of  view  of  the  leading  Jerusalem 
apostles.  This  was  but  the  first  of  many  such 
crises.  In  the  plastic  life  of  these  newly-formed 
and  hence  easily-dissolved  churches,  where  ac- 
tive thought  led  to  quick  movement,  inner  groups 
and  sects  were  constantly  forming.  The  parties 
at  Corinth  are  known  to  us  by  name.  The  ad- 
mirers of  Paul,  and  Apollos,  those  who  held  to 
the  great  name  of  Peter,  perhaps  also  those  who 
maintained  their  own  preeminent  right  to  be- 
long to  Christ,  were  parties,  the  existence  of  which 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    185 

brought  danger  to  the  peace  of  the  church,  and, 
worse  still,  as  all  missionary  work  in  modern 
times  shows,  broke  the  solid  front  which  Chris- 
tianity, in  order  to  conquer  the  world,  needed  to 
present  against  the  hosts  of  the  world's  dark- 
ness. This  motive,  concern  about  the  impediment 
to  the  progress  of  Christian  missions  that  lay 
in  partisan  strife,  is  clearly  at  work  in  Paul's 
repeated  injunctions  and  entreaties  to  give 
diligence  to  keep  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the 
bond  of  peace.  The  tendency  to  sectarianism 
went  so  far  that  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  has  occasion  to  urge  his  readers  not 
to  forsake  assembling  together,  "as  the  custom 
of  some  is. "  ^ 

In  the  earlier  period  of  Paul's  work  there  was 
danger  to  the  faith  of  his  converts  from  Judaiz- 
ers  who  denied  the  sufficiency  of  faith  in  Christ 
for  salvation,  and  tried  to  persuade  gentile  Chris- 
tians to  add  to  faith  the  fuller  security  of  obe- 
dience to  the  Jewish  law.  The  growth  of  the 
Christian  Church  in  numbers  and  independent 
life  combined  with  Paul's  arguments  and  with 
the  gradual  diminution  in  influence  of  the  Jewish 
nation  and  religion  to  check  this  Judaizing  propa- 

i  Heb.  X.  25. 


186  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

ganda ;  after  Paul 's  time  the  danger  seems  to  have 
been  inconsiderable. 

A  more  serious  and  growing  danger  was  one 
that  came  with  entrance  into  the  large  world.  A 
tendency  was  widespread  and  inevitable  to  make 
a  combination  with  many  types  of  thought  so  as 
to  produce  a  half-christian  religion  stuffed  with 
oriental  speculation  and  Greek  ideas  and  having 
a  strong  dash  of  popular  superstition.  This  syn- 
cretism was  perhaps  the  greatest  danger  to  which 
Christianity  was  exposed;  the  most  interesting 
example  of  it  in  the  apostolic  age  is  the  system, 
already  mentioned,  of  the  Colossian  teachers. 
In  the  second  century  it  manifested  itself  in  the 
Gnostic  schools  of  semichristian  thought. 

Of  course  at  all  times  these  young  bodies  of 
Christians  must  have  had  to  fight  against  the 
indifference  and  apostasy  of  their  own  members. 
The  Christian  life  was  hard  for  men  and  women 
to  whom  its  strict  morals,  though  at  first  in- 
spiring, involved  unwonted  discipline.  Often  un- 
comfortable and  sometimes  distressing  and  dan- 
gerous were  the  relations  of  a  Christian  with  his 
kindred  and  former  friends.  For  many  the  goal 
must  have  come  to  seem  far-away  and  faint,  the 
path  long  and  the  power  insufficient.  AYe  see 
these  sad  stories  behind  the  stirring  passages  in 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    187 

which  Paul  appeals  to  his  friends  to  quit  them 
like  men  in  the  proud  recognition  of  their  high 
privilege,  in  that  God  hath  chosen  us  in  Christ 
before  the  foundation  of  the  world,  and  will  per- 
fect until  the  day  of  Jesus  Christ  the  good  work 
which  he  hath  begun  in  us.  And  less  than  a 
generation  later  in  the  whole  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  can  be  read  a  strenuous  appeal  called 
out  hy  the  danger  of  relapse  in  some  important 
church,  not,  as  is  often  supposed,  into  Judaism, 
but  away  from  the  service  of  the  living  God  al- 
together. 

But  it  is  time  to  turn  from  the  inner  char- 
acteristics and  dangers  of  the  apostolic  churches 
to  their  outer  form  and  condition.  If  we  had 
been  at  Corinth  and  had  visited  the  meeting, 
held  to  the  great  annoyance  of  the  Jews  in  the 
house  of  Titius  Justus  adjoining  the  Jews'  own 
synagogue,  we  should  have  found  there  gathered, 
to  use  Paul's  words,  "not  many  wise  after  the 
flesh,  not  many  men  of  influence,  not  many  gentle- 
men,'' but  rather  representatives  of  the  dull  ele- 
ments of  the  world  and  the  weak  and  base  ele- 
ments and  the  elements  that  are  commonly 
despised.  Small  tradesmen,  craftsmen,  freedmen, 
slaves  would  be  there,  both  men  and  Avomen. 
There  would  be  some  Jews;  a  large  proportion 


188  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

would  be  persons  who  had  once  turned  with  in- 
terest to  Judaism  but  had  now  found  in  Jesus 
Christ  not  only,  as  with  the  Jews,  a  pure  moral- 
ity and  a  lofty  monotheism,  but  freedom,  equal- 
ity, and  a  new  power  unto  salvation.  Among 
the  women  it  is  likely  that  some  would  be  pres- 
ent of  higher  wealth  and  social  position.  Such 
was  Phoebe  of  Cenchrese,  near  Corinth,  for  whom 
Paul  writes  a  note  of  introduction,  ^  and  who 
had  been  a  patroness  of  the  Corinthian  church. 
We  hear,  too,  at  Corinth,  of  Erastus,  the  treas- 
urer of  the  city,  and  of  Stephanas,  who  seems 
to  have  been  a  man  of  substance,  as  was  Phile- 
mon of  Colossse;  at  Ephesus  Paul  had  friends 
among  the  Asiarchs,  who  were  men  of  prominence 
in  society.  In  Rome  there  is  reason  to  believe 
that  before  the  end  of  the  first  century  several 
persons  of  distinction,  including  a  consul,  T.  Flav- 
ins Clemens,  and  his  wife  Domitilla,  near  rela- 
tives of  the  Emperor  Domitian,  became  Chris- 
tians. But  these  were  isolated  cases,  and  it  re- 
mained true  throughout  our  period  and  for  many 
years  thereafter  that  the  Christian  churches  were 
composed  chiefly  of  persons  of  lowly  position  in 
the  community. 

The     original     meetings     of    these    primitive 

»  Eom.  xvi.  1-2. 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    189 

churches  were  the  gatherings  for  instruction  from 
the  missionary  apostle  whose  word  had  brought 
them  together.  For  this  purpose  they  assembled 
in  a  private  house  as  at  Corinth,  or  in  a  public 
lecture-room  as  at  Ephesus— where  we  hear  of 
the  School  (or  hall)  of  Tyrannus.  As  the  churches 
became  independent,  two  kinds  of  meetings  ap- 
pear,—those  for  social  worship  and  instruction 
and  those  for  common  meals.  Of  the  meetings 
for  worship  and  instruction  we  can  gain  a  clear 
notion  from  I  Corinthians.  The  Christians  come 
together  in  a  meeting  substantially  like  a  prayer- 
meeting.  Those  whom  the  Spirit  moves  rise  from 
their  seats  and  offer  for  the  worship  of  God  and 
for  the  edification  of  the  brethren  their  prayer, 
their  psalm,  their  teaching,  their  revelation,  their 
tongue,  their  interpretation  of  tongues.  In  a 
well-ordered  meeting  those  who  feel  the  impulse 
to  speak  will  restrain  themselves  until  others 
have  ceased.  In  practice,  the  disorderly  and  ex- 
cited pressure  to  be  heard  brought  about  at 
times  an  objectionable  and  even  irreverent  con- 
fusion. Paul  classifies  the  various  contributions 
that  are  thus  made  to  the  common  life.  Some 
have  the  gift  of  teaching,  and  in  the  word  of 
knowledge  and  the  word  of  wisdom  (two  types 
between  which  we  are  unable  to  discriminate) 


190  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

bring  the  truth  in  its  various  aspects  to  men's 
hearing.  Others  are  prophets,  and  by  revelation 
speak  that  which  a  direct  vision  of  God  and  his 
truth  has  set  in  their  hearts. 

This  prophecy  must  have  dealt  with  many 
themes.  We  read  of  a  prophet  who  foretold  a 
famine  and  secured  assistance  for  the  stricken 
Christians  at  Jerusalem;  and  again  of  warnings 
to  Paul  in  every  city  that  bonds  and  imprison- 
ment await  him  at  Jerusalem.  But  we  also  see 
that  the  stranger  who  comes  by  chance  into  the 
meeting  of  Christians  finds  himself  reproved 
and  judged  by  the  prophets  and  the  secrets  of 
his  heart  made  manifest,  so  that  *'he  will  fall 
down  on  his  face  and  worship  God,  declaring  that 
God  is  among  you  indeed."  A  whole  book  of 
early  Christian  prophecy  has  been  preserved  to 
us  from  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  the 
"Shepherd",  written  by  one  Hermas,  a  Roman 
Christian.  We  can  there  see  how  moral  exhorta- 
tion, allegorical  pictures,  apocalyptic  vision  and 
foretelling  of  the  future  are  all  combined  in  one 
prophet's  utterances,  and  how  the  sense  of  imme- 
diate inspiration  was  united  with  some  measure 
of  literary  art.  In  a  very  early  Christian  writ- 
ing, the  "Ascension  of  Isaiah,"  which  may  well 
have  been  written  before  the  year  150,  we  have 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    191 

a  contemporary  description  of  such  a  prophetic 
trance.  ''As  he  was  speaking  in  the  Holy  Spirit 
in  the  hearing  of  all,  he  became  silent  and  his 
mind  was  taken  up  from  him  and  he  saw  not  the 
men  that  stood  before  him,  though  his  eyes  indeed 
were  open.  Moreover  his  lips  were  silent  and  the 
mind  in  his  body  was  taken  up  from  him.  But 
his  breath  was  in  him,  for  he  was  seeing  a  vis- 
ion."^ This  doubtless  corresponds  to  one  type 
of  Christian  prophecy,  but  we  must  suppose  a 
great  variety  of  external  forms. 

The  psalms  and  hymns  of  which  Paul  re- 
peatedly speaks  consisted  doubtless  both  of  ap- 
propriate psalms  from  the  Old  Testament,  as  in 
the  Jewish  synagogue,  and  of  original  composi- 
tions of  Christians,  some  notion  of  which  we  can 
perhaps  gain  from  the  canticles  of  the  early  chap- 
ters of  Luke  or  the  great  choruses  and  doxologies 
of  the  Book  of  Revelation.  They  were  thought  of 
as  at  once  addressed  to  God  and  useful  for  the 
instruction  and  admonition  of  the  brethren. 

Besides  the  enlivenment  of  singing,  the  meetings 
were  from  time  to  time  diversified  in  a  less  or- 
derly manner  by  the  strange  phenomenon  of  the 
gift  of  tongues.  The  nature  of  this  is  made  clear 
by  Paul's  discussion  in  I  Corinthians.    As  in  all 

1  Ascension  of  Isaiah  vi.  10-12. 


192  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

times  of  greatly  quickened  religious  fervor,  so  in 
the  apostolic  age  religious  emotion  found  physi- 
cal expression.  In  these  churches  this  appeared 
in  the  utterance  at  the  church  meeting  of  mean- 
ingless combinations  of  sounds,  poured  forth  with 
the  warmth  of  praise  or  prayer  but  without  any 
participation  in  the  exercise  by  the  speaker's 
rational  consciousness.  It  was,  as  Paul  says,  like 
hearing  a  foreigner  speak  in  an  unknown  tongue, 
and  could  be  made  of  value  only  if  these  strange 
languages  not  of  this  earth  were  interpreted  by 
one  divinely  gifted  to  that  service.  Such  inter- 
preters were  sometimes,  but  not  always,  present. 
An  occasional  combination  of  sounds  seems  to  have 
been  recognized  by  the  hearers;  and  it  is  likely 
that  the  Aramaic  word  ahha,  father,  was  some- 
times caught  from  the  lips  of  these  speakers  with 
tongues.^  We  hear,  too,  of  groanings  and  cries. 
All  these  physical  manifestations  of  religious  ex- 
citement have  had  parallels  in  later  and  in  modern 
times.  Even  among  educated  people  in  New  Eng- 
land convulsions,  visions,  and  ecstacies  have  not 
been  unknown.  The  attitude  of  wise  pastors 
towards  them  finds  a  complete  prototype  and 
analogy  in  the  judicious  directions  which  the 
Apostle  Paul  offers  to  the  Corinthians. 

iRom.  viii.  15,  26-27;  Gal.  iv.  6. 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    193 

Of  stated  forms  of  worship  at  these  meetings 
we  have  no  knowledge.  Even  the  use  of  the 
Lord's  Prayer  in  worship  is  not  attested.  We  do 
know,  however,  that  after  the  Jewish  fashion  the 
congregation  responded  Amen  to  the  prayer 
spoken  by  one  person. 

That  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  in  the  Greek 
translation  were  read  at  these  services  we  may 
assume,  althou^  there  is  no  express  statement 
to  that  effect.  The  example  of  the  synagogue, 
where  reading  of  the  scriptures  formed  the  funda- 
mental element  of  the  meeting,  would  be  likely  to 
be  continued  in  the  Christians'  meetings.  This  is 
confirmed  by  the  familiarity  with  the  Old  Testa- 
ment on  the  part  of  the  whole  church  which  Paul 
everywhere  assumes,  for  such  acquaintance  is 
most  likely  to  rest  on  regular  public  reading. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  these  Old  Testament 
Scriptures  were  from  the  first  the  divinely-in- 
spired and  authoritative  Bible  of  the  Church. 
The  Church  came  into  existence  with  a  sacred 
book  already  in  its  hand.  From  the  outset  among 
both  Jewish  and  gentile  Christians  it  was  the 
source  not  only  of  life  and  inspiration  but  of  the 
knowledge  of  truth,  and  the  final  place  of  appeal 
in  discussion.  In  such  a  situation  it  is  evident 
that  everything  must  turn  on  the  method  of  in- 


194  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

terpreting  this  Bible.  And  all  the  more  because 
with  Christianity  a  new  mode  of  interpreting  the 
Old  Testament  had  been  introduced.  ' '  Beginning 
from  Moses  and  from  all  the  prophets, '  *  says  Luke 
of  Jesus  with  the  disciples  on  the  way  to  Emmaus, 
**he  interpreted  to  them  in  all  the  Scriptures  the 
things  concerning  himself."  This  exactly  de- 
scribes the  situation  in  the  early  Church.  They 
were  prepared  to  find  the  events  of  Jesus'  life  and 
the  truths  into  which  the  Holy  Spirit  had  led 
them  shadowed  forth  in  their  Bible,  and  therefore 
they  did  find  them  there.  The  early  Christian 
interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament  was  not  by 
the  methods  of  critical  study.  It  was  by  all  the 
resources  of  allegory  and  by  a  process  of  forcing 
into  the  Old  Testament  a  meaning  given  by  con- 
temporary thought  and  in  any  way,  even  remotely, 
akin  to  the  Old  Testament  language.  Such  a  use 
will  always  accompany  a  doctrine  of  verbal  in- 
spiration and  complete  authority  of  the  letter.  At 
the  same  time  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  this  use  of 
the  Old  Testament  was  not  the  only  one  practised. 
Besides  finding  in  it  the  reflection  of  their  own 
ideas,  the  early  Church,  like  the  Church  in  all 
ages,  felt  the  direct  influence  of  the  moral  zeal 
and  spiritual  elevation  of  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures.    Paul  not  only  found  in  the  word  of 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    195 

Proverbs  about  muzzling  the  ox  a  warrant  for  the 
support  of  the  Christian  missionary  by  those  for 
whom  he  labored,  he  also  drew  from  a  true  under- 
standing of  Isaiah  and  the  Psalms  suggestions 
that  entered  into  the  bone  and  sinew  of  his 
noblest  thought. 

As  to  Christian  writings  we  hear  that  letters 
from  honored  teachers  were  read  in  the  churches. 
To  this  end  the  epistles  of  Paul  were  most  of  them 
written.  Thus  he  writes  to  the  Colossians,  "And 
when  this  epistle  hath  been  read  among  you, 
cause  that  it  be  read  also  in  the  church  of  the 
Laodiceans;  and  that  ye  also  read  the  epistle 
from  Laodicea. ' '  In  accordance  with  this  custom 
the  Book  of  Revelation,  which  was  probably  from 
the  first  intended  to  be  read  publicly  in  meeting, 
is  couched  in  the  form  of  a  letter,  with  a  saluta- 
tion and  farewell  in  regular  epistolary  fashion. 
Correspondence  between  friendly  churches  also 
was  doubtless  read  at  the  meetings. 

After  the  composition  of  the  Gospels  these  must 
soon  have  come  into  use  for  edification  in  the 
church  services,  but  how  soon  we  cannot  tell.  At 
first  the  recollections  of  Jesus'  life  were  preserved 
orally,  and  seem  to  have  been  used  for  instruction 
by  teachers,  and  perhaps  committed  to  memory 
by  the  members  of  the  church,  but  we  do  not  gain 


196  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

the  impression  that  the  public  worship  of  the 
earliest  Christians  included  anything  correspond- 
ing to  the  later  reading  of  the  Gospels. 

On  what  day  and  how  often  in  the  week  these 
meetings  were  held  we  have  but  slight  indica- 
tions, but  there  is  ground  for  thinking  that  from 
an  early  time  in  the  apostolic  age  they  were  held 
on  Sundaj^,  as  they  certainly  were  in  the  period 
next  following. 

Besides  the  meetings  which  I  have  been  describ- 
ing, intended  for  worship  and  instruction,  which 
an  outsider  in  Corinth  or  Ephesus  might  have 
himself  attended,  such  a  visitor  w^ould  have 
learned  of  another  form  of  assembly,  to  which  he 
probably  would  not  have  been  invited.  This 
was  the  common  meal  of  the  church,  with  which 
was  joined  the  observance  of  the  Lord's  supper. 
As  in  the  earliest  church  at  Jerusalem,  so  in 
Paul's  time,  and  in  some  places  for  generations 
later,  these  common  meals,  or  love-feasts,  were 
kept.  They  were  in  many  ways  like  the  common 
meals,  w^hether  or  not  connected  with  sacrifices, 
of  gentile  and  Jewish  clubs,  and  were  an  alto- 
gether natural  part  of  the  life  of  such  a  society. 
That  a  lack  of  good  breeding  and  kindly  spirit 
betrayed  itself  in  connection  with  these  banquets 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    197 

and  had  to  be  corrected  by  Paul  is  an  instructive 
circumstance. 

But  these  disorderly  exhibitions  of  selfishness 
were  of  more  serious  import  because  these  com- 
mon meals  were  not  only  social  occasions  but  also 
included  the  solemn  symbolic  commemoration  of 
the  death  of  the  Lord.     This  observance  of  the 
direction  which,  as  Paul  assures  us,  Jesus  had 
given  for  the  regular  repetition  of  the  acted  par- 
able of  the  Last  Supper,  seems  to  have  been  gen- 
eral throughout  the  Church,  and  Paul's  language 
and  the  Gospel  narratives  of  the  institution  seem 
to  imply  the  use  of  a  fixed,  though  simple,  form  of 
words.     It  served  to  illustrate  the  central  sig- 
nificance both  of  Christ's  death,  in  which  the  New 
Covenant  was   ratified  by  the   shedding  of  his 
blood,  and  of  his  person,  on  which — in  spiritual 
communion— all   might   feed.     It  also   gave   the 
Christian   Church  its  own  sacrificial  meal,   and 
Paul  sees  a  real  relation  established  between  the 
soul  and  Christ,  by  the  participation  in  his  cup 
and  his  bread,  similar  to  that  which  the  prev- 
alent   heathen    theory    of    sacrificial    meals    saw 
created  between  a  worshipper  and  his  divinity. 
Then  as  now  the  parable  of  the  eucharist  had  its 
value  in  the  very  meagreness  of  the  accompany- 
ing language  and  the  almost  limitless  freedom  of 


198  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

individual    interpretation,    subject    only    to    the 
clear  reference  to  the  central  fact. 

With  this  simple  rite  should  be  mentioned  the 
other   symbolic   act  by   which   entrance   on   the 
privileges  of  the  Church  was  marked— baptism,  a 
symbolic  washing,   suggested  by  the  custom   of 
John   the    Baptist,    not   regularly   practised   by 
Jesus  in  his  ministry,  but  apparently  taken  up 
from  the  first  in  the  Church.     That  it  was  ordi- 
narily performed  in  the  form  of  a  complete  bath 
is  likely,  but  its  essence,  like  that  of  the  Jewish 
lustrations  called  by  the  same  name,  plainly  lay 
in  its  symbolism,  not  in  its  form.    It  marked  the 
Christian's  separation  from  the  world  and  union 
with  Christ,  whereby  he  was  washed,  and  sancti- 
fied, and  justified.    Of  the  baptism  of  infants  in 
the  apostolic  age  we  do  not  directly  hear,  but  the 
question    of    when   entrance    into    the    Christian 
Church  began  must  speedily  have  arisen.    Ancient 
thought  had  no  such  notion  of  full  independence 
of  the  individual  soul  that  it  could  easily  separate 
the  status  of  a  child  from  that  of  its  parents,  and 
the  example  of  the  Jewish  custom  of  circumcision, 
to  which  Christian  baptism  was  early  seen  to  form 
the   counterpart,   cannot   have  been   without  its 
effect.     At  any  rate  the   children   of  believing 
parents  were  deemed  ''holy." 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    199 

The  general  control  of  the  affairs  of  the  church 
was  in  the  hands  of  a  committee  of  the  older 
members,  called  presbyters,  or  elders.  They  are 
sometimes  referred  to  as  ''leaders,"  or  as 
' '  rulers. ' '  This  arrangement  was  similar  to  that  of 
a  Jewish  synagogue,  and  at  a  time  when  living 
men  still  remembered  the  apostles  it  was  believed 
to  have  been  instituted  by  them.  That  this  is  so 
there  is  no  good  reason  to  doubt,  but  even  if  the 
apostles  had  not  effected  this  organization,  some- 
thing like  it  would  have  grown  up,  and  in  some 
churches  very  likely  did  grow  up,  of  itself.  The 
care  of  the  services,  provision  of  a  place  of  meet- 
ing, arrangement  of  the  common  meals,  control  of 
the  money,  and  attention  to  the  business  of  the 
society,  would  certainly  have  required  such  a 
governing  body  of  competent  and  trusty  men. 
Paul  refers  to  these  persons  as  possessing  a  gift 
of  the  Spirit  which  fitted  them  for  the  work  and 
was  wholly  analogous  to  the  gift  of  prophecy  or  of 
healing;  and  it  is  likely  that  the  influence  of  the 
first  elders  at  Corinth  and  elsewhere  rested  on  the 
recognized  fitness  of  those  who  exercised  these 
functions,  rather  than  on  a  formal  election  to 
such  an  office.  But  a  more  formal  organization 
was  sure  to  appear  before  long,  and  in  any  case 
the  line  between  personal  influence  and  recog- 


200  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

nized  official  right  in  a  new  and  plastic  body  is 
hard  to  draw. 

Another  term,  overseer,  or  bishop,  was  also  used 
to  describe  the  chief  authority  in  the  churches. 
Whether  all  the  elders  were  also  called  bishops, 
or  whether  some  of  the  elders  were  specially 
chosen  to  bear  this  title  and  perform  special  func- 
tions has  been  disputed.  The  evidence  is  too 
meagre  to  warrant  an  unqualified  judgment,  but 
seems  to  point  to  an  original  usage  which  described 
all  the  elders  by  the  more  expressive  name  of 
overseers.  The  single  bishop  ruling  the  church 
and  superior  to  the  body  of  presbyters  does  not 
appear  until  after  the  apostolic  age. 

The  bishops,  or  elders,  were  at  least  in  some 
cases  aided  in  their  duties  by  a  board  of  minis- 
trants,  or  deacons,  who  doubtless,  as  in  later  times, 
helped  in  the  eucharistic  service  and  attended  to 
the  care  of  the  poor.  Of  deacons  we  hear  less  in 
the  apostolic  age  than  of  elders.  In  one  case 
a  woman,  Phoebe,  is  called  a  deaconess,  but  the 
word  can  refer  to  any  kind  of  serviceable  minis- 
try, and  we  cannot  be  sure  that  an  office  is  here 
meant. 

In  its  relation  to  the  outside  world  the  Chris- 
tian Church  appears  as  a  new  religion  like  the 
mysteries  which  flourished  in  the  Roman  Empire. 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    201 

Having  no  sanction  from  the  higher  authorities 
any  church  was  liable  to  be  suppressed  by  the 
police  under  the  law  which  made  it  their  duty  to 
arrest  and  punish  sacrilegious  persons,  thieves, 
and  other  dangerous  characters.  It  is  possible 
that  the  churches  sheltered  themselves  to  some  ex- 
tent under  the  general  sanction  offered  to  the 
clubs  organized  for  providing  decent  burial  to 
their  members,  and  in  the  early  days  described  in 
Acts  the  apostles  generally  succeeded  in  proving 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Roman  authorities  that 
they  were  not  revolutionists.  As  time  went  on, 
however,  the  separation  of  the  Christians  from  the 
usual  customs  of  life,  their  refusal  to  share  not 
only  in  the  vices  of  their  former  friends,  but  in 
their  worship  and  in  every  act  which  involved 
worship,  brought  upon  the  believers  the  common 
fate  of  all  separatists,  the  hatred  of  the  world. 
Petty  social  persecution  led  on  to  denunciation  be- 
fore the  government.  The  refusal  of  the  Chris- 
tians to  offer  sacrifice  to  the  Emperor  seemed  to 
the  authorities  not  only  lese-majeste  but  also  an- 
archy. At  the  same  time  the  unpopularity  of  the 
Christians,  with  their  air  of  superior  privilege 
and  virtue,  and  their  exclusiveness,  led  to  many 
rumors  of  unnatural  crimes  and  vices. 

Down  to  the  time  of  the  great  fire  in  Rome  in 


202  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

64  A.D.  we  do  not  hear  of  any  organized  perse- 
cution. At  that  time,  however,  the  public  detesta- 
tion of  the  Christians  as  haters  of  the  human  race 
made  it  possible  to  bring  on  them  the  charge  of 
setting  fire  to  the  city.  In  the  persecution  which 
followed  the  fire  *'a  great  multitude,"  which 
must  mean  many  hundreds,  including,  it  is  said, 
Peter  and  Paul,  perished.  From  that  time  it 
seems  to  have  been  an  established  principle  of 
Roman  administration  that  if  the  police  chose  to 
act,  membership  in  the  Christian  sect  was  in  itself 
a  capital  offense,  somewhat  as  the  mere  profession 
of  anarchistic  sentiments  is  nowadays  often  re- 
garded as  a  crime.  In  practice  the  Christians 
•were  quiet  and  peaceable  folk,  the  great  aim  of 
the  police  authorities  was  to  preserve  order,  and 
only  when  popular  passion  was  in  some  way 
aroused  was  there  grave  danger  for  the  Chris- 
tians. For  a  long  period  it  seems  to  have  been  on 
the  whole  the  policy  of  the  magistrates  to  repress 
the  outbursts  of  popular  hatred  against  the 
Christians  rather  than  to  seek  these  out  and  pun- 
ish them  as  criminals.  In  the  Book  of  Revelation 
we  can  see  the  reflection  of  a  stage  in  the  develop- 
ment of  events  when  the  Church  had  clearly  per- 
ceived that  the  Roman  State  and  civilization  was 
inherently   heathen    and    fundamentally    hostile. 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    203 

but  before  Asia  Minor  at  least  had  yet  seen  any 
considerable  number  of  martjni'doms.  Only  much 
later,  when  Christianity  showed  itself  powerful 
and  was  undermining  the  religious  bond  which 
was  supposed  to  hold  the  Roman  Empire  to- 
gether, did  the  Roman  State  proceed  systemati- 
cally against  what  it  deemed  the  obstinate  repre- 
sentatives of  a  miserable  and  dangerous  super- 
stition. 

Of  the  moral  dangers  to  which  the  Christians 
were  exposed  I  have  already  spoken.  We  ought 
not  to  lose  sight  of  the  brighter  side  of  the  pic- 
ture. The  Christian  churches  were  the  seat  of 
the  highest  moral  ideal  and  standard  the  world 
has  ever  known.  In  them  the  power  of  God 
wrought  with  new  forces  and  great  motives  to  the 
renewal  of  character.  In  the  central  principle  of 
Love  morality  found  its  inner  fountain;  in  the 
face  of  Jesus  Christ  it  saw  its  model  and  ex- 
emplar. If  the  epistles  of  Paul  show  us  the  moral 
defects  of  his  readers,  they  also  show  their  moral 
capacity. 

One  part  of  the  brotherly  duty  of  Christians 
which  must  have  occupied  a  great  place  in  their 
life  appears  less  prominently  in  the  epistles  of 
Paul  than  we  might  expect,  aid  to  the  poor.  The 
reason  is  doubtless  that  this  was  a  part  of  Chris- 


204  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

tian  activity  which  required  no  regulation  from 
the  apostle.  He  arranged,  however,  a  contribu- 
tion for  the  poor  fellow-christians  in  Palestine, 
and  there  are  enough  indications  besides  to  show 
that  the  natural  expression  of  Christian  brother- 
hood was  present  in  abundance.  Before  long  the 
care  of  the  poor  fell  to  the  deacons. 

Before  leaving  the  consideration  of  the  various 
traits  and  points  of  view  of  these  religious  so- 
cieties which  became  planted  here  and  there  in  the 
world  of  the  first  century  and  were  destined  to 
exert  so  great  an  influence  on  human  history,  we 
need  to  ask  what  were  the  special  characteristics 
of  their  inner  principle  of  unity  which  gave  them 
cohesion  and  ensured  their  permanence.  We  may 
answer,  I  think,  that  Christianity  as  held  by  the 
gentile  churches  in  the  apostolic  age  was  marked 
by  three  supreme  and  essential  attributes,— uni- 
versality, adequacy,  and  the  claim  of  finality. 

It  was  universal  because  its  fundamental  doc- 
trine, on  which  the  whole  rested,  was  a  pure 
spiritual  monotheism,  free  from  all  national  or 
materialistic  limitations.  God  was  so  conceived 
that  all  men  could  understand  his  nature,  and  that 
no  peculiarity  of  race  or  defect  of  general  educa- 
tion need  exclude  men  from  belief  in  him  and  wor- 
ship of  him.    Fatherhood  is  a  universally  compre- 


LIFE  IN  AN  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH    205 

hensible  idea.  The  Christian  conception  of  God 
was  as  the  Father  of  all  men,  whose  nature  men 
know  through  the  revelation  of  his  purpose  and 
character  made  in  his  Son  Jesus  Christ. 

Again  the  Christianity  of  these  people  was  an 
adequate  and  satisfying  religion.  For  it  offered 
to  every  soul  spiritual  union  with  God,  the  for- 
giveness of  sin,  new  powers  of  moral  life.  If  it 
really  could  give  these,  no  religion  could  do  more. 

Finally,  and  not  least  of  all,  the  religion  in 
which  these  churches  found  their  needs  satisfied 
possessed  in  its  own  claim  and  in  their  conviction 
the  character  not  of  being  a  religion  but  of  being 
the  religion.  This  claim  has  been  from  time  to 
time  expressed  in  many  ways ;  for  the  first  Chris- 
tians it  was  expressed  in  the  belief  that  Jesus  was 
Messiah  and  Lord,  and  that  he  who  was  known  to 
men  by  his  first  coming  in  humility  should 
come  again  in  glory  to  bring  in  the  consummation 
and  completeness  of  God's  deliverance  of  men.  A 
vague  expectation  that  some  deliverer  should 
come  would  have  been  insufficient.  The  thought 
of  Jesus  as  the  pious  and  heroic  teacher  of  Gali- 
lee whose  work  was  ended  by  his  death,  would 
likewise  have  been  powerless  to  conquer  the  world. 
It  was  the  thought  that  this  Jesus  was  God 's  vice- 
gerent in  the  universe  that  enabled  the  Christians 


206  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

to  hold   fast  to  the  new  religion   as  absolutely 
worth  all  that  life  itself  could  offer. 

It  is  a  measure  of  the  power  and  significance  of 
Christianity  itself  when  we  think  of  the  impres- 
sion which  the  outward  life  and  ways  of  these 
unsatisfactory,  crude,  sinning,  superstitious 
groups  of  Christians  would  have  made  on  one  of 
us,  and  then  remember  that  in  truth 

"The  hopes  and  fears  of  all  the  years" 
hung  on  their  persistence  in  faith  and  hope  and 
love. 


VII 

THE   APOSTLES  AND   THE   GOSPELS 

The  Apostle  Paul  is  the  most  distinct  figure  in 
our  view  of  the  apostolic  age.  His  course  of  life 
and  his  thought,  his  relations  with  his  converts, 
the  characteristics  of  Christian  life  in  the  churches 
he  founded,  are  presented  to  us  in  our  sources 
with  great  vividness  and  with  sufficient  complete- 
ness. But  beside  Paul  there  were  many  other 
missionaries  of  whose  careers  we  can  take  Paul's 
as  representative.  Tliey,  too,  travelled  both  in 
the  larger  world  of  gentile  life  and  among  the 
Jews,  preached,  and  established  churches;  and  the 
conditions  of  life  in  their  churches,  the  dangers 
and  the  victories,  the  persecutions  and  the  ideals, 
were  doubtless  of  the  same  general  kind  as  those 
which  Paul's  epistles  show  us  in  Corinth,  Thessa- 
lonica,  or  Colosste.  The  glimpses  which  the  second 
century  furnishes  of  a  widespread  Christianity 
give  hints  of  the  broad  basis  that  must  have  been 
laid  in  the  first  century  by  a  host  of  apostles  al- 
most entirely  unknown  to  us  even  by  name.  Of 
207 


208  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

some  of  these  we  hear  as  companions  of  Paul  at 
one  time  or  another.  We  know  at  least  the  names 
of  Barnabas,  John  Mark,  Titus,  w^ho  w-as  the 
trusted  representative  of  Paul  in  the  delicate  nego- 
tiations with  the  Corinthians,  Erastus,  Androni- 
cus  and  Junias,  Apollos  the  Alexandrian,  Tychi- 
cus  the  beloved  brother  and  faithful  minister, 
Aristarchus  and  Jesus  Justus,  Silas  or  Silvanus, 
Demas,  Luke  the  beloved  physician,  Philemon  of 
ColossEe,  Archippus,  wdio  was  perhaps  the  son  of 
Philemon  and  had  received  from  the  Lord  a  min- 
istry, apparently  at  Laodicea,  and,  in  a  position 
above  all  the  rest,  Timothy,  whom  Paul  had  taken 
from  his  home  in  Asia  Minor  near  the  outset  of 
his  missionary  journeying  and  of  whom  he  writes 
at  Rome  near  the  end  of  his  life,  "I  have  no 
man  like-minded;  ...  as  a  child  serveth  a 
father,  so  he  served  with  me  in  furtherance  of  the 
Gospel."  All  these  must  have  received  some 
direct  or  indirect  training  from  Paul,  and  have 
worked  in  his  spirit  and  by  his  methods.  But 
besides  these  and  independent  of  Paul  there 
must  have  been  others.  Irenseus,  who  came 
from  Asia  Minor  and  was  bishop  of  Lyons  toward 
the  end  of  the  second  century,  had  knowledge 
of  a  considerable  number  of  men  whom  he  calls 
Elders,  or,  as  w^e  might  say.  Fathers  of  the  Church, 


THE  APOSTLES  209 

men  who  lived  into  the  second  century  but  whose 
roots  go  back  into  the  apostolic  age.  They  seem 
to  have  been  the  old  men  to  whom  the  Chris- 
tians of  Asia  Minor  in  the  boyhood  of  Irenseus 
reverently  looked  up,  or  at  any  rate  looked  back, 
and  who  seemed  to  bind  them  to  the  days  of  the 
Lord  and  his  twelve  apostles.  The  names  of  two 
of  these,  John  the  Presbyter  and  Aristion,  have 
been  preserved  for  us,  and  Irenasus  is  still  able 
to  quote  some  things— including  some  of  much  im- 
portance—which these  old  men  had  handed  down. 
Of  the  original  twelve  apostles  we  have  but 
unsatisfactory  and  meagre  knowledge.  The  later 
church  believed  that  they  had  spent  their  lives  in 
preaching  Christ  throughout  the  world  and  that 
many  of  them  had  died  as  martyrs.  Of  each  one 
a  field  of  activity  is  reported,  but  the  traditions 
are  late  and  conflicting,  and  it  is  not  now  possible 
to  winnow  out  the  grain  of  truth  that  may  lurk 
in  the  heap  of  historically  worthless  chaff.  Thus 
we  hear  of  Philip  working  in  Scythia  to  the  north, 
Thomas  in  Parthia  to  the  far  east,  Bartholomew  in 
Arabia  and  Armenia,  Matthew  in  Ethiopia,  Simon 
the  Zealot  in  Egypt,  Cyrene,  Libya,  Mauretania 
and  the  British  Isles, — but  most  of  these  stories 
can  in  no  sense  be  accounted  history.  It  would 
be  natural  to  suppose  that  the  Twelve  worked,  at 


210  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

any  rate  at  first,  mainly  among  Jews;  that  we 
know  so  little  of  them  leads  to  the  suspicion  that 
most  of  them  proved  not  to  be  men  of  great  mark 
or  originality. 

Of  two  of  the  Twelve,  however,  more  is  re- 
ported, Peter  and  John.  With  them  should  be  in- 
cluded James,  the  Lord's  brother,  who  remained 
at  Jerusalem,  and  of  whom  I  have  already  spoken 
in  connection  with  the  history  of  Jewish  Chris- 
tianity. 

In  the  earliest  days  of  the  Church  at  Jerusalem 
Peter  appears  to  have  been  the  recognized  leader. 
Before  many  years,  however,  he  left  Jerusalem, 
and  we  hear  of  him  there  but  once  again,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  Conference  at  which  Paul's  gospel 
for  the  gentiles  was  admitted  as  legitimate  by 
the  pillars  of  the  mother  church.  At  that  time 
Peter  recognized  Paul  and  his  work  as  approved 
by  God.  Shortly  afterward  he  was  at  Antioch 
with  Paul,  and  adopted  the  mode  of  life  of  the 
Christians  there,  abandoning  Jewish  customs  so 
far  as  to  take  part  wdth  the  gentile  believers  in 
the  common  meals  of  the  church.  But  this  ex- 
hibition of  generous  large-heartedness  was  checked 
by  pressure  from  Jerusalem.  He  with  others 
withdrew  from  the  common  life,  and  in  conse- 
quence  received   a   reprimand   from   Paul,   who 


PETER  211 

in  the  second  chapter  of  Galatians  has  recorded 
the  chief  outlines  of  his  indignant  attack.  '*If 
thou,  being  a  Jew,"  cried  Paul,  appearing  at  the 
meeting  of  these  Jewish  separatists, — "If  thou, 
being  a  Jew,  livest  as  do  the  gentiles,  and  not  as 
do  the  Jews,  how  compellest  thou  the  gentiles  to 
live  as  do  the  Jews?  We,  although  Jews  by 
nature,  ....  believed  on  Christ  Jesus  that 
we  might  be  justified  by  faith  in  Christ,  and  not 

by  works  of  the  Law I  do  not  make 

void  the  grace  of  God;  for  if  justification  is 
through  the  Law,  then  Christ  died  for  nought." 

Of  the  immediate  effect  of  this  ringing  attack 
we  hear  nothing;  from  the  New  Testament  we 
learn  only  that  some  years  later  a  party  of  Chris- 
tians at  Corinth  attached  itself  to  the  name  of 
Peter,  and  that  Paul  refers  to  him  at  that  time  as 
married  and  as  travelling.  Whether  he  had  been 
in  Corinth  we  cannot  infer  from  Paul 's  allusions ; 
that  he  was  occupied  with  preaching  the  Gospel 
we  must  believe,  but  of  where  he  spent  these 
years  we  have  no  knowledge. 

Every  incident  from  Peter's  life  that  has  been 
preserved  reveals  an  interesting  and  vigorous 
personality.  The  hearty  and  impulsive  readi- 
ness to  promise  more  than  he  could  perform, 
and  to  take  more  steps  with  the  radicals  than 


212  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

he  could  defend  to  the  satisfaction  of  his  con- 
servative associates,  are  attractive  traits,  and 
although  Peter  seems  to  have  had  no  great  in- 
tellectual originality  and  to  have  left  no  individ- 
ual and  lasting  mark  on  the  thought  of  the 
Church,  yet  a  record  of  his  life  drawn  with  the 
same  insight  into  the  deeper  movements  of  his- 
tory and  the  same  turn  for  picturesque  incident 
which  in  the  Book  of  Acts  illuminate  for  us 
the  career  of  Paul,  would  surely  have  given  us 
stirring  narratives  and  revelations  of  noble  Chris- 
tian character.  His  work  covered  more  than 
thirty  years  of  mature  life,  and  must  have 
brought  him  into  contact  with  men  of  very  various 
types. 

Two  epistles  bearing  Peter's  name  are  con- 
tained in  the  New  Testament.  Of  these  the  sec- 
ond and  shorter  epistle  is  written  in  a  wholly 
different  style  from  the  first,  appears  to  be  made 
in  part  by  taking  over  the  whole  Epistle  of  Jude 
with  but  slight  alterations,  and  for  the  rest  is 
probably  largely  borrowed  from  other  sources. 
It  contains  some  beautiful  passages,  but  is  a  late 
production  of  the  second  century,  in  which  Peter 
is  merely  impersonated  as  the  author.  The  recog- 
nition of  this  pseudonymous  character  is  a  critical 
conclusion  now  beyond  reasonable  question,  but 


PETER  212 

the  precise  circumstances  of  origin  and  the  date 
of  the  epistle  remain  obscure. 

The   First  Epistle   of   Peter   is   a   writing   of 
wholly  different  nature.    The  acceptance  of  it  as 
by  the  Apostle  Peter,  whose  name  is  attached  to 
it,  is  not  free  from  grave  difficulties,  but  it  seems 
to  me  on  the  whole  more  likely  that  he  wrote  it. 
It  bears  all  the  marks  of  intimate  relation  to  a 
real  situation,  and  is  well  suited  to  give  encour- 
agement  and   counsel   to   the    Christians   of   the 
provinces  of  Asia  Minor  to  whom  it  is  addressed. 
Its  most  noteworthy  characteristics  are  a  freshness 
and  directness  which  make  it  attractive  to  read 
and  easy  to  quote,  combined  with  an  extraordi- 
nary degree  of  dependence  on  the  epistles  of  Paul, 
especially  those  to  the  Romans  and  the  Ephesians. 
The  system  of  thought  underlying  the  epistle,  to 
which  it  gives  pithy  expression  in  vigorous  max- 
ims, is  that  which  Paul  had  wrought  out  in  the 
labor  of  years,  and  the  resemblances  in  language 
are  no  less  striking.    First  Peter  stands  far  closer 
to  Paul's  thought  than  do  some  of  the  epistles 
which  bear  Paul's  own  name,  and  if  Peter  wrote 
this  letter,  his  attitude  to  Paul  in  the  later  years 
of  his  life  must  have  been  one  of  agreement  and 
admiration.    Yet  in  this  epistle,  which  is  written 
not  to  Jews  but  to  gentile  Christians  living  in 


214  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

districts  in  some  of  which  Paul  himself  had  been 
the  chief  missionary,  Paul  is  nowhere  alluded  to 
with  a  single  syllable.  Even  if  he  had  already 
died,  this  is  hard  to  explain. 

This  epistle  was  written,  apparently,  from 
Rome,  which  the  writer  significantly  calls  Baby- 
lon. The  Church  tradition  has  made  Peter  bishop 
both  of  Antioch  and  of  Rome.  His  greatness 
in  the  history  of  the  whole  Church  comes  from 
two  causes ;  first,  because  he  was  the  unquestioned 
leader  among  the  immediate  disciples  of  Jesus 
Christ  in  Galilee  and  Jerusalem,  and  secondly, 
because  he  became  the  patron  saint  and  martyr 
of  that  powerful  church  which  at  first  obtained 
in  fact,  and  then  came  by  formal  constitutional 
claim  to  hold,  the  primacy  among  all  its  peers. 

At  least  since  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  it 
has  been  the  common  view  of  Catholic  Christians 
that  Peter  spent  twenty-five  years  of  his  life  at 
Rome,  and  that  he  was  bishop  of  Rome.  The  story 
of  his  episcopate  is  for  two  reasons  not  likely  to 
be  true;  first,  because  an  older  tradition  takes  a 
different  view  and  names  a  certain  Linus  as  the 
first  bishop,  and  secondly,  because  it  is  probable 
that  there  was  at  Rome  at  that  early  date  no  single 
bishop  at  all  but  a  board,  or  committee,  of  bishops. 
The  period  of  twenty-five  years,  also,  is  certamly 


PETER  215 

an  error,  doubtless  due  to  the  later  ignorance  of 
Peter's  place  of  residence  after  leaving  Jerusa- 
lem. When  Paul  wrote  to  the  Romans  about  the 
year  60,  and  when  he  wrote  from  Rome  to  the 
Philippians  several  years  later,  it  is  plain  that 
Peter  was  not  yet  at  Rome. 

The  tradition,  however,  that  Peter  came  to 
Rome,  and  suffered  martyrdom  under  Nero 
(54-68  A.  D.)  either  in  the  great  persecution  which 
followed  the  burning  of  the  city  or  somewhat 
later,  rests  on  a  different  and  firmer  basis.  Many 
Protestant  scholars  have,  indeed,  thought  other- 
wise. At  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  when 
criticism  was  systematically  applied  to  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  Roman  church  and  church  history 
was  rewritten  from  the  Protestant  point  of  view, 
the  searching  and  successful  criticism  of  the  state- 
ments about  Peter  carried  away  not  only  the 
legend  but  also  a  part  of  the  historic  fact.  Of 
later  years  continued  re-examination  of  the  evi- 
dence has  led  many,  without  distinction  of 
ecclesiastical  connection  or  doctrinal  bias,  to  be- 
lieve that  Peter's  death  actually  took  place  at 
Rome.  The  evidence  is  less  full  than  could  be 
wished,  but  is  on  the  whole  sufficient.  It  is  un- 
questioned that  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  after 
Peter's  death  it  was  the  common  belief  at  Rome 


216  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

that  he  had  died  there,  as  had  Paul.  The  "tro- 
phies" of  the  two  great  apostles  could  be  seen  on 
the  Vatican  hill  and  by  the  Ostian  Way.  Whether 
these  trophies  were  the  scenes  of  death  or  the 
places  of  burial  is  immaterial;  a  firm  local  tra- 
dition of  the  death  at  Rome  of  both  apostles  is  at- 
tested for  a  time  not  too  far  distant  from  the 
event.  Earlier  than  this  date  the  allusions  to 
the  place  where  the  prince  of  the  apostles  suffered 
martyrdom  are  indeterminate,  although  the  re- 
peated combination  of  Peter  and  Paul  in  the  same 
statements  suggests  that  they  met  their  death  in 
the  same  city,  even  if  not  at  the  same  time. 
Against  this  very  respectable  body  of  evidence 
is  to  be  set  only  the  neglect  of  some  early  writers 
to  refer,  or  to  refer  definitely  enough,  to  the  place 
of  Peter's  death,  an  argument  from  silence 
which  in  view  of  the  character  of  the  docu- 
ments in  question  cannot  be  taken  as  conclusive. 
The  connection  of  Peter's  death  with  Nero's 
persecution  would  further  be  confirmed  by  the 
fact  that  the  traditional  place  of  his  martyrdom 
and  the  site  of  St.  Peter's  Church  is  the  Vatican 
hill,  where  Nero's  gardens  lay,  and  where  accord- 
ing to  Tacitus  the  Christians  were  put  to  death 
with  indescribable  tortures.  The  story  that  Peter 
w^as  crucified  with  his  head  down— by  his  own  re- 


PETER  217 

quest  because  he  was  unworthy  to  meet  the  same 
punishment  as  his  Master— is  late,  but  it  may  pre- 
serve a  recollection  of  the  unusual  horrors  which 
Nero  added  to  increase  his  sport.  As  to  the  date 
of  Peter's  death,  it  may  be  added  that  if  I  Peter 
is  genuine,  Peter  would  seem  to  have  survived 
Paul,  and  to  have  written,  after  the  latter 's  death, 
a  letter  to  gentile  Christians  in  the  provinces  of 
Asia  Minor. 

Besides  the  so-called  Second  Epistle  of  Peter 
there  grew  up  in  the  second  and  later  centuries  a 
considerable  mass  of  apocryphal  literature  con- 
nected wdth  Peter.  A  "Gospel  according  to 
Peter"  was  still  used  here  and  there  in  out-of-the- 
Tvay  places  even  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  second 
century.  A  portion  of  it  has  recently  been  found 
in  a  grave  in  Egypt,  and  we  are  able  by  our  own 
inspection  to  confirm  an  ancient  bishop's  opinion 
that  it  was  comparatively  harmless  but  obviously 
not  by  Peter.  Other  writings  of  which  w^e  have 
more  or  less  knowledge  are  the  "Preaching  of 
Peter"  and  various  books  of  "Acts  of  Peter,"  in 
which  the  early  Christians,  both  orthodox  and 
heretical,  found  at  once  entertainment  and 
spiritual  profit.  Later,  in  the  great  series  of 
romances  called  the  "Homilies"  and  "Recog- 
nitions" of   Clement,   Peter's  travels   are   elabo- 


218  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

rately  told  and  his  ever  victorious  encounters  with 
that  t}^e  of  all  error,  Simon  Magus.  The  lesson 
of  this  great  development  of  apocr^-phal  writing 
and  legend  concerning  Peter  seems  to  be  that  the 
Church,  while  it  profoundly  reverenced  him  as 
first  of  the  apostles,  yet  received  from  him  little 
of  distinctive  influence,  and  knew  but  little  of  his 
history  except  what  Luke  was  able  to  collect  at 
Jerusalem.  This  would  precisely  accord  with 
what  seems  to  be  the  fact,  that  his  stay  in  Rome 
was  short,  but  was  ended  by  a  glorious  martyr- 
dom. 

It  was  doubtless  for  the  reason  just  alluded  to 
that  the  Church  so  greatly  emphasized  the  rela- 
tion to  Peter  of  the  Gospel  of  ]\Iark,  The  earliest 
statement  in  regard  to  this  relation,  and  a  state- 
ment which  is  very  likely  trustworthy,  is  that  of 
Papias,  a  Christian  writer  in  Asia  ]\Iinor  in  the 
first  half  of  the  second  century.  The  great  work 
of  Papias,  in  which  he  gave  interpretations  of  the 
sayings  contained  in  the  already  written  Gospels, 
has  not  come  down  to  us,  but  a  few  of  his  remarks 
interested  one  writer  or  another,  and  have  been 
preserved  as  fragments.  AAliat  he  said  about 
Peter  is  this,  "And  the  Elder  [i.e.  the  person 
from  whom  Papias  derived  his  information]  said 
this  also  :    ]\rark,  having  become  the  interpreter  of 


THE   GOSPELS  219 

Peter,  wrote  down  accurately  everything  that  he 
remembered,  without  however  recording  in  order 
what  was  either  said  or  done  by  Christ.  For 
neither  did  he  hear  the  Lord,  nor  did  he  follow 
him;  but  afterwards,  as  I  said,  [attended]  Peter, 
who  adapted  his  instructions  to  the  needs  [of  his 
hearers] ,  but  had  no  design  of  giving  a  connected 
account  of  the  Lord's  oracles.  So  then  Mark  made 
no  mistake,  while  he  thus  wrote  down  some  things 
as  he  remembered  them;  for  he  made  it  his  one 
care  not  to  omit  anything  that  he  had  heard  or  to 
set  down  any  false  statement  therein."  This 
quaint  statement,  thus  torn  from  its  context, 
where  it  evidently  presented  a  defence  of  the  Gos- 
pel of  Mark  against  some  early  objection,  is  the 
foundation,  so  far  as  external  evidence  is  con- 
cerned, of  the  critical  study  of  the  Gospels,  and 
with  its  statement  that  the  great  literary  monu- 
ment of  the  Apostle  Peter  was  the  Gospel  of 
Mark,  we  may  well  turn  to  look  at  the  notable 
branch  of  activity  in  the  apostolic  age  from  which 
the  Gospels  proceeded.  We  shall  consider  at  first 
only  the  first  three  Gospels,  sometimes  called  the 
''Synoptic"  Gospels,  so  designated  because  they 
can  be  arranged  in  the  parallel  columns  of  a 
synopsis,  or  harmony. 

Of  the  interest  and  work  of  the  earliest  Chris- 


220  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

tians  in  collecting  and  committing  to  written  form 
the  traditions  of  Jesus'  life  and  teachings  we 
know  almost  nothing  except  what  can  be  inferred 
from  the  Gospels  themselves.  Papias  seems  to  be 
the  only  writer  who  concerned  himself  with  re- 
cording such  knowledge  as  was  to  be  had  in  the 
period  next  following  the  apostolic  age.  If  the 
whole  of  his  book  might  be  discovered  in  some 
monastery  on  a  Greek  island  or  in  the  sand  of 
some  Egyptian  grave,  it  would  be  a  priceless 
treasure,  for  it  would  go  far  toward  solving  many 
a  problem  of  New  Testament  criticism. 

From  what  has  been  said  of  the  character  of 
early  Christian  life  and  thought  it  will  not  seem 
strange  that  the  first  generation  of  Christians  did 
not  have  a  strong  interest  in  the  mere  history  of 
the  life  of  Christ.  Their  faith  was  in  a  Lord  in 
heaven,  their  hope  was  in  his  return  to  earth, 
they  possessed  by  their  union  with  him  in  the 
Holy  Spirit  present  guidance  and  constant  power 
of  progress.  Life  in  Christ,  and  faith  manifested 
in  love,  not  mere  recollections,— the  present  and 
future,  not  the  past,— filled  their  thought.  The 
events  of  Jesus'  life  to  which  thought  especially 
turned  were  of  three  kinds:  those  in  which  it  was 
believed  that  his  messianic  dignity  and  power 
were  shadowed  forth   (especially  the  miracles) ; 


THE   GOSPELS  221 

those  which  seemed  to  be  the  fulfilment  of  Old 
Testament  prophecy;  and  the  circumstances  of 
his  death,  with  the  resurrection.  In  other  words,  it 
was  those  incidents  of  Jesus'  life  that  lent  them- 
selves to  apologetic  use  as  evidence  in  missionary 
preaching,  together  with  that  one  supreme  event 
of  the  Cross  which,  remaining  to  the  Jews  a 
stumbling-block,  forced  the  Christians  to  see  inter- 
preted in  it  the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of 
God.  To  these  should  be  added  those  incidents 
which  were  intimately  bound  up  with  striking 
sayings  of  the  Lord  and  necessary  to  the  under- 
standing of  such  sayings. 

In  the  case  of  the  sayings  a  wider  range  of  in- 
terests controlled  the  selection,  and  perhaps  a  more 
systematic  use  of  the  precepts  and  parables  may 
be  detected.  The  sayings  which  were  kept  in 
mind  were  especially  such  as  related  to  the 
problems  of  the  early  Church.  These  included 
the  relation  of  Christianity  to  the  Jews,  the  right- 
fulness of  Christian  freedom,  the  meaning  of 
Jesus*  death  as  a  ransom;  but  on  these  various 
topics  the  sayings,  although  striking  and  precious, 
are  comparatively  speaking  not  very  numerous. 
The  two  main  bodies  of  sayings  which  the  early 
Christians  desired,  and  were  able,  to  collect  were 
rules  of  conduct  and  assurances  as  to  the  future 


222  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

by  which  believers  might  stay  and  comfort 
their  hearts.  The  ethical  and  the  apocalyptic 
words  constitute  the  great  bulk  of  the  sayings  of 
our  Synoptic  Gospels.  Under  the  ethical  should 
be  included  all  the  rules  of  conduct,  whether  for 
personal  morality,  life  in  the  church,  or  mission- 
ary work;  the  apocalyptic  include  the  parables  of 
the  Kingdom.  Here,  as  in  the  events,  we  must  not 
expect  to  find  what  we  need  for  a  biography,  but 
rather  a  selection  of  instances  significant  for  the 
present  thought  and  practice  of  those  who  gath- 
ered them.  We  may  be  thankful  that  the  singular 
unity  and  transparent  sincerity  of  our  Lord's 
thought  enable  us  to  gain  from  even  such  one- 
sided collections  of  his  deeds  and  words  a  true 
knowledge  of  those  things  which  he  chiefly  strove 
to  impress  on  men.  We  may  be  still  more  thank- 
ful that,  as  Phillips  Brooks  used  to  say,  Jesus 
Christ  was  not  essentially  a  deed-doer,  nor  a  word- 
sayer,  but  a  life-giver;  and  no  observation  could 
be  more  true  than  that  to  the  fundamental  atti- 
tude of  Christians  in  the  apostolic  age. 

We  are  to  think  of  the  apostolic  age,  then,  as 
holding  in  its  memory  the  traditions  of  the  life  of 
Jesus  and  governed  in  its  recollection  by  such 
interests  as  we  have  described,— for  the  events, 
mainly  an   apologetic  interest,   for  the   sayings, 


THE   GOSPELS  223 

mainly  a  practical  one.  These  traditions  were  at 
first  cherished  by  the  Jewish  Christians  at  Jeru- 
salem. It  would  seem  that  while  still  held  in 
Palestine  they  reached  some  degree  of  fixed  oral 
or  written  form.  From  Palestine  by  various 
channels  they  came  to  the  Great  Church  of  the 
gentile  world,  which  has  transmitted  them  writ- 
ten to  us. 

Since  the  memories  of  Jesus'  life  and  teach- 
ings were  at  first  not  written,  they  can  hardly 
have  formed  any  regular  part  of  the  weekly  serv- 
ices for  worship,  as  the  reading  of  the  Gospels 
did  later.  Whether  the  collections  of  sayings 
were  systematically  committed  to  memory  in  a 
kind  of  catechetical  class  we  do  not  know.  In  the 
addresses  and  teaching  both  to  outsiders  and  to 
believers  the  stories  and  sayings  were  evidently 
used  for  argument,  for  the  enforcement  of  moral 
instruction,  and  for  encouragement.  The  occa- 
sional, though  sparing,  use  which  Paul  makes  of 
Jesus'  sayings,  and  the  use  in  the  earliest  wait- 
ings like  the  Epistle  of  Clement  of  Rome  (about 
95  A.D.),  is  of  this  character. 

The  history  of  these  traditions  in  their  oral 
stage  before  they  were  given  permanent  written 
form  would  be  of  the  greatest  importance  for  the 
historical  criticism  which  seeks  to  see  Jesus  Christ 


224  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

exactly  as  he  was.  Unfortunately  it  is  possible 
to  know  but  little  about  that  period  of  Gospel 
tradition.  Our  first  clear  knowledge  comes  with 
the  time  when  literary  activity  arose  in  the  com- 
position of  written  Gospels.  The  subject  has 
been  chiefly  investigated  in  connection  with  what 
is  called  the  Synoptic  Problem.  The  first  three 
Gospels,  that  is  to  say,  are  closely  like  each  other 
in  many  respects  and  differ  widely  in  many  re- 
spects. Out  of  the  vast  number  of  incidents  and 
sayings  which  might  have  been  remembered  from 
the  years  of  Jesus'  life  and  ministry,  a  compara- 
tively small  collection  has  been  preserved,  and 
two-thirds  of  those  are  found  in  more  than  one  of 
these  three  short  Gospels.  Nearly  half  of  the  say- 
ings are  found  in  all  three.  Moreover  in  the 
method  of  presentation,  by  brief  detached  sec- 
tions, the  three  Gospels  agree.  Again  the  order  in 
which  these  sections  follow  one  another  is  in  many 
cases  not  merely  the  chronological  order  in  which 
independent  reporters  would  necessarily  coin- 
cide, but  is  determined  in  some  other  way,  as 
when  a  group  of  conflicts  about  Sabbath  observ- 
ance is  found  together;  nevertheless  the  order  in 
the  three  Gospels  is  largely  the  same.  Finally,  the 
details  of  language  and  expression  in  the  sections 
often  agree  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  no  doubt 


THE   GOSPELS  225 

that  there  is  here  not  coincidence  but  real  liter- 
ary connection.  At  the  same  time  the  three  Gos- 
pels are  far  from  being  identical  in  any  of  these 
respects.  As  for  contents  more  than  half  of 
Matthew  and  nearly  half  of  Luke  has  no  parallel. 
It  is  significant  that  in  the  case  of  Mark,  on  the 
other  hand,  but  a  very  few  verses  are  not  found 
repeated  more  or  less  closely  in  either  Matthew  or 
Luke  or  both.  Further,  the  order  of  incidents, 
though  often  the  same,  yet  often  varies;  and  the 
details  of  expression  exhibit  conspicuous  varia- 
tion. 

These  facts  constitute  the  problem.  Many 
theories  have  been  suggested  in  the  earnest  study 
with  sound  method  which  for  now  a  hundred 
years  or  more  has  been  given  to  the  subject.  Out 
of  much  confusion  certain  main  conclusions  have 
at  last  emerged  which  seem  likely  to  stand.  The 
view  now  commonly  held  is  that  the  Gospel  of 
Mark  was  written  first,  or  at  any  rate  has  been 
not  much  modified  from  the  Gospel  which  was 
written  first.  The  writer  must  have  been  ac- 
quainted with  the  body  of  tradition  of  Jesus'  say- 
ings which  the  Church  possessed,  but  his  object  is 
mainly  to  record  events  of  Jesus'  life,  and  he 
leaves  on  one  side  most  of  the  sayings,  or  at  best 
gives  abbreviated  summaries  of  the  larger  collec-. 


226  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

tions.    Mark's  Gospel  is  specially  adapted  for  gen- 
tile Christians,  but  it  was  written  by  some  one 
thoroughly  familiar  with  Palestine  and  Jewish 
life.     The  author  is  at  home  in  the  geography, 
the   social   customs,   the   political   and   religious 
institutions  of  the  Holy  Land.     And  he  writes, 
not  indeed  with  any  literary  pretensions  what- 
ever, but  with  a  freshness  and  picturesque  vivid- 
ness, and  with  a  color  and  a  fulness  of  significant 
and  accurate  detail,  that  show  him  to  stand  very 
close  to  some  one  who  was  an  eye-witness,  although 
he  nowhere  implies  that  he  was  himself  present. 
These   characteristics   of  the   Gospel   correspond 
well  with  the  story  of  Papias  that  Mark's  infor- 
mation came  largely  from  Peter.     It  need  not  be 
supposed  that  Peter's  personal  recollections  were 
Mark's  only  source,  and  in  any  case  we  seem  to 
have  in  Mark  not  a  private  memoir  but  the  record 
of  the  public  tradition  of  the  Church  about  the 
life  of  the  Master.     The  material  had  already 
passed  through  a  considerable  history,  including 
perhaps   translation   from   Aramaic,   before   the 
final  composition  of  our  Gospel.  The  main  literary 
question  which  is  now  much  discussed  is  whether 
our  Gospel  of  Mark  is  substantially  the  original 
writing  or  whether  it  is  an  enlargement  by  an- 
other hand  of  an  earlier  and  shorter  document 


THE   GOSPELS  227 

written  by  Mark.  For  this  latter  theory  there  is 
no  conclusive  evidence,  and  it  is  now  widely  held 
that  we  have  in  our  possession  substantially  the 
book  which  ]\Iark  wrote.  He  would  seem  to  have 
written  it  some  time  after  the  death  of  Peter,  and 
perhaps  at  Rome.  This  would  put  the  date  of 
composition  somewhere  after  the  year  64. 

Besides  the  Gospel  of  Mark  the  Church  had 
the  Sajdngs.  These,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been 
early  collected  in  Palestine,  and  as  we  have  them 
they  plainly  reflect  in  many  interesting  ways  the 
conditions  of  Palestinian  life  at  an  early  time.  It 
seems  likely  that  the  Apostle  ]\Iatthew,  one  of  the 
Twelve,  wrote  down  many  of  the  sayings  in  the 
Aramaic  tongue  in  which  they  were  spoken.  Of 
this  document,  however,  we  know  next  to  nothing, 
for  our  first  Gospel,  which  in  its  title  has  perpetu- 
ated the  memory  of  Matthew's  work,  is  not  a 
direct  translation  of  that  Aramaic  writing,  and 
was  surely  not  written  by  Matthew.  Collections 
of  the  sayings  in  Greek,  probably  in  written  form, 
were,  however,  extant  at  an  early  time  in  the  chief 
Greek-speaking  churches,  and  these  may  well  have 
been  founded  on  this  Aramaic  work  of  Matthew. 

We  are  able  to  detect  the  existence  of  these  col- 
lections, of  which  no  external  tradition  has  come 
down  to  us,  by  observing  the  common  character- 


228  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

istics  of  the  Gospels  bearing  the  names  Matthew 
and  Luke.  They  have  been  constructed,  as  criti- 
cal comparison  and  analysis  show,  by  taking  the 
Gospel  of  Mark  as  a  foundation,  and  working  into 
it  a  large  body  of  other  material,  consisting 
mostly  of  sayings  and  parables.  The  method  has 
been  different  in  the  two  cases.  The  author,  or 
rather  editor,  of  the  first  Gospel,  perhaps  guided 
by  an  arrangement  of  the  sayings  which  he  found 
already  made,  has  combined  much  of  his  new  ma- 
terial in  a  series  of  long  discourses,— the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  the  mission  discourse,  the  sayings 
about  John  the  Baptist,  the  attack  on  the  Phari- 
sees, and  has  inserted  these  at  appropriate  places 
in  the  narrative.  He  has  also  the  practice  of 
expanding  Mark's  little  collection  of  sayings  and 
parables  by  the  addition  of  other  cognate  matter. 
He  has  dealt  with  Mark's  order  with  a  good  deal 
of  freedom,  though  preserving  much  of  the 
sequence;  and  he  has  altered  the  phraseology  to 
some  extent,  especially  in  shortening  the  narra- 
tives of  events. 

Luke  on  the  other  hand  has  preserved  Mark's 
order  more  closely.  As  for  the  sayings,  he  has 
not  followed  Matthew's  method  of  massing  them 
in  long  discourses,  but  preserves  the  form  of 
distinct  sections  in  which  they  had  come  to  him. 


THE  GOSPELS  229 

While  he  follows  the  order  of  Mark  more  closely 
than  does  Matthew,  he  UYice  breaks  it— by  an 
insertion  of  over  a  chapter  and  a  half  (vi.  20-viii. 
3)  and  again  of  over  eight  chapters  (ix.  51-xviii. 
14).  Apart  from  the  chapters  describing  the 
birth  of  John  the  Baptist  and  Jesus  with  which 
he  prefaces  Mark's  narrative,  the  greater  part  of 
Luke's  new  material  is  contained  in  these  two 
insertions. 

The  comparison  of  the  additions  made  by 
Matthew  and  Luke  to  Mark's  narrative  show  an 
unmistakable  literary  connection  between  the 
two  later  Gospels,  which  is  not  sufficiently 
accounted  for  by  supposing  that  both  drew  on  a 
common  oral  tradition.  At  the  same  time  the 
differences  in  their  common  material  are  such 
that  we  must  suppose  the  common  document  to 
have  lain  before  them  not  in  two  copies  having 
exactly  the  same  form,  but  in  two  copies  which 
had  come  to  vary  considerably.  If  this  was  the 
case  it  is  possible  to  account  pretty  satisfactorily 
for  both  resemblances  and  differences.  Some 
further  knowledge  with  regard  to  this  "second 
source,"  often  called  the  "Logia"  (a  poor  name 
which  begs  the  question  at  issue)  is  likely  to  be 
gained  by  future  investigation  of  the  relation 
of  Matthew  and  Luke.    It  ought  to  be  possible  to 


230  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

determine  in  some  degree  its  limits  and  the 
arrangement  of  its  contents. 

The  theory  of  the  composition  of  Matthew  and 
Mark  is  known  as  the  theory  of  Two  Sources,  and 
is  now  widely  held  to  be  the  solution  of  the 
Synoptic  Problem.  It  is  satisfactory  as  far  as  it 
goes,  but  there  is  a  considerable  amount  of  matter 
in  both  Matthew  and  Luke  which  those  evangelists 
must  have  obtained  from  other  quarters  than  this 
second  source.  We  must  conceive  the  process  of 
transmitting  the  sayings  of  Jesus  as  an  extremely 
complicated  one,  with  continual  action  and  re- 
action of  oral  and  written  tradition.  All  the  steps 
and  links  we  shall  never  know. 

The  two  Gospels  of  Matthew  and  Luke,  then,  as 
known  to  us,  owe  their  origin  to  the  desire  aris- 
ing at  two  places  to  combine  into  a  single  book  the 
narratives  of  Mark  and  the  traditions  of  Jesus' 
sayings.  This  impulse  doubtless  testifies  to  a 
growing  historical  interest.  Not  only  were  these 
recollections  interesting  because  of  their  bearing 
on  current  apologetic  discussion  and  for  their 
practical  use,  but  the  facts  themselves  of  the  life 
of  the  Lord  had  by  that  time  become  an  object  of 
devout  concern.  At  the  same  time  the  other  in- 
terests had  not  disappeared,  especially  in 
Matthew.    Both  Matthew  and  Luke  arose  in  the 


THE  GOSPELS  231 

gentile  world,  as  can  easily  be  shown  by  abundant 
evidence  from  general  attitude  and  turn  of 
phrase.  That  they  were  written  at  different 
places  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  there  are  two 
such  parallel  books,  and  that  they  do  not  show 
traces  of  acquaintance  on  the  part  of  either  with 
the  other.  The  differences  between  them  are  in- 
teresting. 

Of  Matthew's  Gospel  we  do  not  know  the  au- 
thor. All  that  we  know  is  that  he  was  not  the 
Apostle  Matthew,  to  whom  an  early  tradition,  for 
causes  which  can  easily  be  understood,  assigned 
the  Gospel.  The  writer  seems  to  have  been  a  Jew, 
to  judge  by  his  interest  in  the  relation  of  Jesus 
to  the  Jewish  nation,  by  his  large  use  of  Jew- 
ish terms,  and  by  his  knowledge  of  the  original 
text  (or  at  any  rate  of  the  Aramaic  version  used 
in  the  sjmagogue)  of  the  Old  Testament.  This 
circumstance  is  perhaps  the  cause  of  one  charac- 
teristic which  is  of  inestimable  value  to  us,  the 
preservation,  namely,  of  Jesus'  sayings  in  their 
original  adaptation  to  the  circumstances  of  Jesus' 
own  place  and  time.  In  the  sayings  of  IMatthew 
we  often  (though  not  always)  come  far  nearer  to 
Jesus'  own  words  than  in  the  parallels  in  Luke. 
And,  although  written  outside  of  Palestine,  this 
Gospel  seems  to  contemplate  Jewish  readers.    But 


232  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

yet  the  writer  stands  firmly  on  the  ground  of  the 
Universal  Church,  and  of  Christian  inclusiveness. 
He  ends  his  Gospel  with  the  great  commission, 
"Go  ye  therefore  and  make  disciples  of  all  the 
nations";  he  repeats  with  entire  heartiness  the 
anti-pharisaic  saying,  **To  eat  with  unwashen 
hands  defileth  not  the  man";  and  he  represents 
Jesus  as  declaring,  with  unmistakable  meaning, 
that  the  Lord  of  the  Vineyard  will  miserably  de- 
stroy the  unworthy  tenants,  "and  will  let  out  the 
vineyard  unto  other  husbandmen,  who  shall 
render  him  the  fruits  in  their  seasons. "  Dawning 
Catholic  Christianity  is  the  environment  from 
which  the  author  of  Matthew  wrote,  and  because 
he  shared  in  this  spirit,  his  Gospel  became  the 
most  influential  of  the  three,  and  the  favorite  with 
the  Church.  Renan  once  said  that  the  Gospel  of 
Matthew  is  the  most  important  book  that  ever 
was  written. 

Matthew's  Gospel  has  a  definite  argumentative 
purpose  which  binds  it  to  the  early  attitude 
toward  the  evangelical  history.  It  aims  to  prove 
that  Jesus  fulfilled  in  the  details  of  his  career 
the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  there- 
fore is  the  Messiah.  No  Gospel  gives  so  large  a 
place  to  formal  quotations  of  prophecy.  It  also 
aims  to  show— and  this  aim  seems  never  lost  from 


THE  GOSPELS  233 

view— that  the  Messiah's  salvation  was  first  of- 
fered to  the  Jews  and  was  by  them  deliberately 
and  finally  rejected.  This  explained  how  the 
Messiah  of  the  Jews  had  become  the  Lord  of  a 
Church  in  which  Jews  constituted  so  small  an 
element. 

In  what  part  of  the  gentile  world  Matthew 
was  written  we  do  not  know.  As  to  its  date,  it 
was  probably  written  after  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem  in  the  year  70,  for  that  seems  clearly 
alluded  to.  Most  scholars  think  that  the  refer- 
ences of  later  writers  and  the  probable  use  by  the 
Gospel  of  John  make  a  date  not  later  than  100 
necessary.  A  few  hold  that  the  years  down  to 
130  or  even  140  must  be  kept  open.  We  shall  be 
safe  in  assigning  it  to  the  later  part  of  the  apos- 
tolic age,  between  70  and  100. 

In  the  Gospel  of  Luke  we  see  a  work  which 
shows  more  of  the  purely  historical  interest 
than  the  Gospel  of  Matthew.  It  is  in  fact 
the  first  part  of  a  large  historical  undertaking, 
of  which  the  second  part  is  the  Book  of  Acts. 
It  may  even  have  been  the  writer's  intention  to 
bring  his  history  in  a  third  volume  down  to  a  later 
date.  In  this  Gospel  is  to  be  seen  much  more  of 
literary  form  and  care  in  composition  than  in 
either  of  the  other  Gospels.    The  author  opens  his 


234  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

work  with  a  dedicatory  preface ;  he  knows  how  to 
write  not  only  the  simple  and  solemn  Biblical 
style  which  he  prefers  for  his  main  narrative,  but 
also  on  occasion  something  more  resembling  the  pe- 
riods of  the  Greek  literature  of  his  day.  He 
avoids  the  barbarisms  and  solecisms  which  are 
found  in  Mark,  and  not  all  of  which  even  Matthew 
(whose  style  has  in  general  a  singular  evenness  and 
smoothness)  has  discarded.  The  Gospel  of  Luke, 
unlike  Matthew,  is  written  by  a  gentile  and  with 
gentile  Christians  in  view.  That  is  clear  on  every 
page.  But  the  author  does  not  write  from  out  of 
any  Jewish-gentile  controversy;  his  point  of  view 
is  much  like  Matthew's.  He,  too,  sees  in  Jesus 
the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  of  the  Messiah; 
and  he,  too,  holds  that  the  great  fact  of  Christian 
history  has  been  the  transfer  of  the  centre  from 
the  Jews  to  the  gentiles.  But  he  is  less  concerned 
with  pointing  out  how  fully  and  exclusively  the 
Gospel  was  originally  offered  to  the  Jews.  He  is 
more  interested  in  showing  that  from  the  first  this 
universal  destiny  was  present  and  in  calling 
attention  to  the  events  of  the  Gospel  history  and 
the  sayings  of  the  Lord  in  which  the  universality 
of  Christianity  was  prefigured.  His  is  the  story 
of  the  grateful  Samaritan  leper,  and  the  parable 
of  the  Good  Samaritan ;  he  reports  that  Jesus  was 


THE  GOSPELS  235 

rejected  at  Nazareth  because  lie  called  to  the  peo- 
ple's attention  the  generous  extension  of  sym- 
pathy on  the  part  of  Elijah  and  Elisha;  he  con- 
tinually emphasizes  the  devotion  of  Jesus  to  the 
outcast  people  of  the  Land  of  Israel  itself.  The 
point  of  view  which  is  thus  manifested  in  the  Gos- 
pel also  underlies,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the 
method  of  composition  in  the  Book  of  Acts. 

About  the  place  of  composition,— somewhere  in 
the  cosmopolitan  world,  where  one  city  showed 
much  the  same  traits  with  another,— we  can  make 
but  unsatisfactory  guesses.  The  date  would  seem 
to  lie  within  the  same  period  as  that  of  Matthew, 
after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in  the  year  70, 
and  probably  before  the  year  100,  although  here 
again  some  scholars  would  put  it  a  little  later. 

The  author  is  held  by  the  tradition  to  have  been 
"Luke  the  beloved  physician,"  the  companion  of 
Paul  to  whom  the  apostle  refers  in  Colossians. 
The  question  turns  on  whether  the  author  of  the 
Book  of  Acts  has  embodied  someone  else's  journal 
in  narrating  the  later  journeys  of  Paul  or  is  giv- 
ing his  own  recollections.  It  is  the  fashion  at 
present  to  think  that  the  Book  of  Acts,  like  the 
Pentateuch,  is  made  up  as  a  composite  out  of 
earlier  documents.  In  that  case  we  have  no  knowl- 
edge of  who  wrote  the  Gospel  of  Luke.  For  myself 


236  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

I  must  confess  to  being  so  old-fashioned  as  to 
believe  that  the  writer  of  Acts  was  himself  with 
Paul  in  his  shipwreck,  and  that  both  the  Gospel 
and  the  Acts  are  the  work  of  a  man  named  Luke. 
In  the  Synoptic  Gospels  we  thus  see  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  earthly  life  of  the  Lord  in  their 
passage  from  the  original  seat  in  Palestine  to 
become  the  possession  of  the  world.  Peter  and 
Matthew,  Galilean  disciples,  with  Mark  from 
Jerusalem,  represent  the  source.  Luke  the  gen- 
tile suggests  the  body  of  persons  for  whose  needs 
the  evangelists  had  now  mainly  to  provide.  This 
situation  has  left  its  traces  in  our  Gospels.  They 
are  not  mere  private  memoirs,  but  public  docu- 
ments in  which  the  public  tradition  of  the  Church 
has  found  its  record.  That  is  attested  by  the  fact 
that  almost  nothing  of  value  relating  to  the  life 
and  teachings  of  Christ  has  come  down  to  us  out- 
side of  these  Gospels  and  the  Gospel  of  John.  We 
can  see  the  current  interests  of  the  early  Church 
reflected  in  the  selection  of  material  in  these  Gos- 
pels. We  can  also  see  some  modification  of  the 
tradition,  and  in  particular  a  certain  adaptation 
in  the  form  of  the  teaching  to  make  it  clear,  or  to 
make  the  underlying  principle  applicable  in 
changed  circumstances.  This  has  made  necessary 
the  historical  criticism  of  the  Gospels,  but  upon 


THE  GOSPELS  237 

this  engrossing  subject  we  may  not  enter,  farther 
than  to  say  that,  as  we  can  all  observe,  the  picture 
of  the  life  and  character  of  Jesus  as  given  in  the 
Synoptic  Gospels  shows  on  the  whole  remarkable 
and  convincing  consistency  and  credibility.  In 
that  picture  a  certain  mystery  is  an  integral  and 
essential  element,  and  cannot  be  separated  out  as 
having  been  added  by  a  legendary  accretion,  al- 
though the  determination  of  the  exact  fact  with 
regard  to  the  forms  in  which  that  mysteriousness 
of  Jesus'  person  expressed  itself  is  not  always 
easy  or  perhaps  possible. 

Our  task  in  the  critical  study  of  the  Gospel 
tradition  must  be  to  observe  what  is  certain,  or 
at  any  rate  highly  probable,  and  to  build  our  view 
on  that.  There  is  sure  to  be  a  significant  and 
suggestive  penumbra  of  the  uncertain;  and  we 
shall  have  to  recognize  the  inadequacy  of  every 
attempt  to  secure  a  historical  view  of  the  life 
of  Christ.  The  notions  of  men  will  vary  with 
their  intellectual  temper  and  with  their  thought 
of  God,  with  their  view  of  the  world  and  with 
the  degree  of  their  satisfaction  in  that  view. 
Happily  the  kind  of  life  into  which  Jesus 
tried  to  lead  men,  the  life  of  loving  dependence 
on  God  conceived  as  Father,  and  of  strenuous  and 
loyal  devotion  to  him,  is  clear,  independently  of 


238  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

puzzling  questions  of  historical  criticism.  If,  be- 
yond that,  what  seems  to  us  certain  is  to  others 
matter  of  doubt,  we  must  recognize  that  there  are 
many  modes  of  approach  to  the  Saviour  of  the 
world  and  to  his  truth,  and  that  he  did  not  re- 
quire of  men  an  adequate  doctrine  of  his  person 
(important  though  that  has  often  been  in  con- 
tributing to  obedience)  but  an  imitation  of  his 
example.  And  from  this,  we  may  believe,  knowl- 
edge itself  shall  spring. 

What  other  attempts  there  were  to  record  the 
traditions  and  bridge  over  the  strange  chasm 
which  separated  the  origins  of  Christianity  from 
the  Great  Church,  we  cannot  fully  know.  Luke's 
preface  speaks  of  ''many"  such,  among  which  our 
Gospel  of  ]\Iark  was  plainly  one.  Papias  refers 
to  the  various  translations  of  IMatthew's  writing. 
We  have  fragments  of  the  ''Gospel  according  to 
the  Hebrews,"  which  was  used  for  centuries  by 
an  out-of-the-way  Jewish  community  in  Pales- 
tine. Another,  the  "Gospel  according  to  the 
Egyptians,"  may  be  the  form  in  which  the  Gos- 
pel story  was  first  read  in  Egypt,  and  the  frag- 
ments found  in  Egypt  in  1897  and  1903  may 
possibly  come  from  this  Gospel.  Apart  from  these 
two  the  gospels  outside  the  canon  are  all  of  later 
origin,  and  are  either  dependent  on  our  canonical 


JOHN  239 

Gospels  or  else  purely  romantic  products  of  pious 
imagination.  So  far  as  we  can  see,  the  canonical 
Gospels  were  from  the  time  of  their  composition 
recognized  as  superior  to  all  other  accounts  in 
fulness  and  in  fidelity  to  the  public  tradition  of 
the  Church.  The  widely  spread  idea  that  the 
Church  selected  our  Gospels  on  arbitrary  prin- 
ciples or  by  accident  out  from  a  mass  of  others 
equally  trustworthy  or  even  better,  is  an  idle  tale. 

At  one  great  figure  of  the  apostolic  age,  and  at 
a  great  body  of  literature  which  stands  as  a  third, 
distinct  in  its  own  character,  beside  the  Epistles 
of  Paul  and  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  we  have  not 
yet  looked.  I  refer  of  course  to  the  Apostle  John 
and  the  Gospel  and  three  epistles  which  bear  his 
name. 

Over  the  later  life  of  the  Apostle  John  and  over 
the  origin  of  those  writings  zealous  controversy 
has  been  rife  for  a  century,  and  there  still  rests 
upon  these  questions  a  considerable  degree  of 
mystery.  This  is  due  to  the  lateness  of  the  attest- 
ation of  the  tradition,  to  the  surprising  failure 
of  several  early  writers  to  give  any  sufficient 
confirmation  of  the  later  tradition,  and  to  our 
ignorance  of  the  movements  and  issues  of  the 
years  just  preceding  the  end  of  the  first  century, 
a  period  to  which  the  writings  relate  and  which 


240  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

need  to  be  understood  in  order  to  the  adequate 
interpretation  of  them. 

The  Apostle  John  was  in  Jerusalem  at  the  time 
of  the  Conference,  shortly  before  50  a.d.  He 
is  said  later  to  have  gone  to  Ephesus,  and  there  to 
have  lived,  the  leader  of  that  church  and  in  par- 
ticular the  defender  of  the  faith  against  Gnostic 
heretics,  until  after  the  accession  of  Trajan  in 
the  year  98,  then  to  have  died  full  of  years  in  the 
love  of  his  fellow  teachers  and  apostles  and  of  the 
whole  church.  At  Ephesus,  we  are  told,  he  wrote 
the  Gospel  and  the  epistles,  and  at  Patmos,  while 
in  exile,  the  Eevelation.  This  account  is  given  by 
Irenseus,  bishop  of  Lyons  but  native  of  Asia 
Minor,  who  wrote  about  185  and  appears  to  have 
known  these  facts  ever  since  his  youth.  He  and 
other  writers  have  preserved  a  few  incidents  from 
John's  life  at  Ephesus.  On  one  occasion,  as  he 
went  to  bathe,  he  found  Cerinthus  (his  heretical 
opponent)  in  the  bath-house,  and  ran  out  without 
taking  his  bath,  crying,  ''Let  us  flee,  lest  the  bath 
fall  because  Cerinthus  the  enemy  of  truth  is  with- 
in." Another  beautiful  and  touching  story,  too 
long  to  quote,  tells  how  John  discovered  that  a 
young  man  in  whose  welfare  he  had  taken  an  in- 
terest had  through  bad  company  turned  to  evil 
ways  and  had  taken  up  the  life  of  a  bandit-chief. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN  241 

He  sought  out  the  robber,  let  himself  be  taken 
prisoner  by  the  bandits'  picket,  and  did  not  stop 
until  by  his  words  he  had  brought  the  rough  fellow 
to  sorrow  and  confession,  ''a  great  example,"  as 
the  ancient  writer  says,  "of  true  repentance  and 
a  great  proof  of  regeneration,  a  trophy  of  a  vis- 
ible resurrection."  ^  Of  John's  life  we  thus  know 
but  little.  But  the  silence  of  many  witnesses  who 
must  have  known  more  than  we  do  is  not  in  this 
case  sufficient  ground  for  maintaining,  as  do  some, 
that  the  tradition  even  of  John's  residence  at 
Ephesus  has  no  foundation  in  fact. 

The  problem  of  the  authorship  of  the  Gospel 
and  epistles  is  highly  complicated,  and  we  cannot 
here  undertake  to  discuss  it  with  any  fulness.  It 
cannot  be  said  that  there  is  agreement,  although 
concessions  have  been  made  on  both  sides.  Per- 
haps the  most  gratifying  circumstance  in  a  de- 
bate which  has  been  at  times  acrimonious  is  that 
the  lines  between  the  parties  are  not  now  drawn 
on  dogmatic  grounds.  Thus  a  recent,  sweeping, 
and,  one  may  even  say,  jubilant  denial  of  the 
Johannine  authorship  has  come  from  an  orthodox 
professor ;  while  the  most  recent  and  elaborate  de- 
fense is  from  a  member  of  an  avowedly  unor- 
thodox   communion.      There    are    four    current 

iClem.  Alex.  Quis  dives,  quoted  In  Eus.  H.  E.  ill.  23. 


242  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

views  about  the  Gospel  and  First  Epistle :— that 
they  were  written  by  John,  the  Apostle ;  that  they 
were  written  by  disciples  of  John  and  embody 
his  teaching ;  that  their  author  is  wholly  unknown ; 
and  that  they  were  written  by  another  John,  the 
Presbyter,  who  may  also  have  lived  at  Ephesus. 
The  study  of  the  external  evidence  seems  now 
to  have  about  exhausted  itself,  and  to  have  reached 
a  relative  termination  with  no  conclusive  result. 
To  separate  the  literature  wholly  from  the  name 
of  John  involves  so  violent  a  rupture  with  an  al- 
most unbroken  and  very  ancient  tradition  that 
many  scholars  feel  that  it  would  require  more 
convincing  evidence  than  has  yet  been  produced. 
On  the  other  hand  it  must  be  admitted  that  there 
are  some  obscurities  in  the  external  tradition  it- 
self, notably  that  caused  by  the  fact  that  a  small 
sect  in  the  second  century,  nicknamed  "Alogi," 
rejected  this  Gospel.  The  internal  evidence  seems 
on  the  one  hand  to  many  to  point  to  authorship 
by  a  Palestinian  Jew  who  commanded  resources 
of  independent  traditions  of  the  life  of  Jesus  such 
as  only  an  apostle  could  well  have  had;  on  the 
other  hand  the  differences  from  what  may  be 
called  the  official  record  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels, 
both  as  to  events  and  sayings,  seem  to  others 
hardly  compatible  with  direct  authorship  by  an 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN  243 

apostle.  How  far  the  mind  of  a  personal  fol- 
lower of  Jesus  could  have  gone  in  the  process  of 
working  over  the  Master's  thought  into  an  ad- 
vanced, though  sympathetic,  form  under  the 
pressure  of  new  problems  and  by  aid  of  the  light 
of  a  strange  philosophy,  is  the  question  upon 
which  most  turns,  and  it  is  one  upon  which  opin- 
ions are  sure  to  differ.  More  light  on  the  problem 
of  the  authorship  of  the  Johannine  literature  is 
to  be  expected  from  a  better  understanding  of  the 
three  epistles  in  relation  to  the  contemporary 
conditions  of  the  Church,  and  from  fuller  recog- 
nition of  the  immediate  purpose  and  direct  bear- 
ings of  the  discussions  contained  in  the  Gospel 
itself. 

More  important  than  the  inquiry  into  the  au- 
thorship of  the  Gospel,  and  more  fruitful  in  re- 
sult, is  the  investigation  of  the  character  and 
nature  of  the  Gospel,  and  of  its  date. 

For  the  date  we  are  left  in  somewhat  the  same 
situation  as  in  the  case  of  the  other  Gospels.  To 
most  scholars  the  evidence  seems  to  make  any 
date  later  than  110  impossible,  and  a  date  some 
years  earlier  rather  more  likely.  There  remain, 
however,  some  who  deny  the  validity  of  the  evi- 
dence on  which  this  judgment  rests,  and  bring  the 
Gospel  down  as  late  as  140.    A  final  decision  on 


244  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

this  matter  can  be  reached,  if  ever,  only  by  the 
discovery  of  new  evidence,  or  by  a  better  under- 
standing of  the  general  tides  of  thought  in  that 
period. 

For  the  great  question  after  all  is,  What  is  this 
Gospel?  It  is  not  to  be  classed  with  the  Synoptic 
Gospels;  it  is  no  simple  record  of  the  tradition 
of  the  Church  or  the  memory  of  a  disciple.  It  is 
rather  a  work  of  theological  reflection,  which  pre- 
supposes an  adequate  knowledge  of  the  main  facts 
of  Jesus'  life,  and  presents,  attached  to  a  scant 
framework  of  the  course  of  his  life,  an  interpreta- 
tion of  what  he  was  and  what  he  said. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  we  said  that  the 
precise  contents  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  have  been 
largely  determined  by  the  particular  interests  of 
the  church  at  the  time  when  these  recollections 
were  living  and  abundant.  The  Gospel  of  John 
shows  the  working  of  this  same  tendency ;  only  it 
has  gone  very  much  farther.  The  prologue  with 
which  the  Gospel  opens  sets  forth  the  point  of 
view:  Jesus  is  the  Word  of  God  and,  conversely, 
the  Word  is  not  unknowable  but  has  become  flesh 
in  Jesus  Christ.  This  two-sided  view,  of  which 
there  will  be  more  to  say  in  the  next  chapter,  is 
the  writer's  fundamental  contention.  What  fol- 
lows, especially  in  the  discourses,  is  written  with 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN  245 

constant  reference  to  the  problems  and  issues  of 
the  writer's  own  time.  The  grounds  of  the  au- 
thority of  the  Son— what  bears  witness  to  him 
and  how ;  the  relation  of  the  Son  to  the  Father — 
their  oneness  in  a  unity  of  love;  the  significance 
of  the  eucharist— in  reply  to  various  objections; 
the  meaning  of  his  death;  these  and  many  other 
topics  of  contemporary  practical  interest  are  here 
discussed.  The  singular  beauty  and  elusive  depth 
of  these  chapters  have  ever  been  the  joy  and  con- 
solation of  readers.  It  is  Jesus'  thought  univer- 
salized and  applied,  its  abstract  truths  brought 
to  the  fore;  we  move  in  a  world  above  space  and 
time  and  the  human  relations  of  this  earth,  of 
which  the  Synoptic  Gospels  are  so  full.  As  a 
great  scholar  has  said,  it  is  the  sayings  of  Jesus 
'' transfused  into  infinite  renderings."  But  it 
is  in  the  main  not  a  record  at  all,  but  an  inter- 
pretation, in  which  a  mind  of  rare  spiritual  in- 
sight has  set  forth  what  the  life  and  person  of 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  meant  to  him.  It 
has  the  quality  which  has  been  said  to  belong  to 
every  great  portrait,  that  it  contains  something 
of  the  personality  not  only  of  the  subject,  but 
also  of  the  painter.  But  in  this  case  the  painter 
is  one  w^hose  thought  and  character  have  been 
formed  by  him  whom  he  portrays. 


246  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

How  far  we  may  rely  on  the  Fourth  Gospel  for 
statements  of  historic  fact  is  the  most  difficult 
question  of  all.  Its  chief  value  lies  perhaps  rather 
in  the  realm  of  truth  than  of  fact.  The  impres- 
sion which  Jesus  Christ  made  on  the  men  around 
him  is  to  be  learned  from  the  Synoptic  Gospels. 
In  the  Fourth  Gospel,  whether  or  not  it  was  writ- 
ten by  John,  we  read  the  product  of  meditation 
in  the  light  of  profound  spiritual  experience. 
The  problems  of  theology  have  come  upon  men. 
In  John,  as  in  the  intellectually  kindred  Ignatius, 
bishop  of  Antioch  and  martyr  a  few  years  later, 
we  have  an  indication  of  the  turn  men's  thoughts 
were  taking,  and  can  see  one  of  the  bases  of  the 
Christian  life  and  thought  of  the  following  period. 
Because  the  Gospel  of  John  was  taken  into  the 
embryo  New  Testament,— and,  it  would  appear, 
immediately  on  its  publication,— it  has  been  able 
to  exert  on  Christian  history  ever  since  an  influ- 
ence commensurate  with  its  greatness  as  a  product 
of  human  thought.  In  it  we  are  taught  to  recog- 
nize in  Jesus  the  features  of  the  eternal  Son  of 
God;  and  then  the  problems  of  speculative  re- 
ligious thought  are  taken  up  one  by  one  and 
solved  in  the  life  and  the  death  on  Calvary  of  the 
incarnate  Word,  who  was  in  the  beginning,  and 
through  whom  in  Jesus  Christ  came  to  us  grace 
and  truth. 


VIII 

THE  PREPARATION  FOR  CATHOLIC 
CHRISTIANITY 

We  have  now  looked  at  the  most  characteristic 
aspects  of  Christian  life  and  thought  in  the 
apostolic  age,— at  the  spread  of  Christianity,  its 
heroes,  its  churches,  the  beginnings  of  its  litera- 
ture. This  study  has  brought  before  us  the  great 
transition  from  the  Christianity  of  the  first 
Christians  at  Jerusalem  to  the  Christianity  which, 
by  the  time  the  century  ended,  was  planted  over 
much  of  the  civilized  world.  It  is  now  in  order 
to  glance  at  the  transition  with  which  our  period 
closes,  or  at  any  rate  to  see  how  even  within  the 
apostolic  age  the  changes  were  already  preparing 
and  the  tendencies  showing  themselves  which 
were  destined  in  the  following  century  to  trans- 
form primitive  into  Catholic  Christianity.  We 
might  call  it  a  study  of  the  materials  present  in 
the  first  century  out  of  which  Catholic  Chris- 
tianity with  its  established  forms  of  thought  and 
modes  of  church  life  was  ultimately  constructed. 
247 


248  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

Between  the  apostolic  age,  with  its  definite  char- 
acter, primitive  and  enthusiastic,  and  the  compar- 
atively settled  Old  Catholic  Church  of  Irenaeus, 
TertuUian,  and  Clement  of  Alexandria,  lay  the 
second  century,  but  the  second  century  must  be 
regarded  as  the  transitional  stage  between  two 
strongly  marked  periods,  itself  a  time  of  consoli- 
dation and  preparation.  A  clear  notion  of  the 
relation  of  primitive  to  Catholic  Christianity  is 
essential  to  an  understanding  of  the  facts  and 
forces  of  the  apostolic  age  itself. 

That  aspect  of  the  transformation  which  has  to 
do  with  the  dropping  away  of  primitive  character- 
istics that  did  not  last  on  into  the  Catholic  period 
need  not  detain  us  long.  Such  was,  for  instance, 
the  fresh  enthusiasm  and  sense  of  immediate 
divine  inspiration  in  which  the  apostolic  Church 
lived.  Certain  bodies  of  Christians  in  the  second 
century  tried  to  preserve  something  of  this  at  a 
time  when  the  main  Church  was  concerned  with 
the  building  up  of  scriptural  and  official  authori- 
ties; and  in  punishment  these  honest  revivers  of 
archaic  conditions  were  called  Montanists,  and 
outlawed  as  heretics.  Or,  to  take  another  illus- 
tration, as  Christianity  became  naturalized  in  the 
Greek  world,  some  of  those  original  elements  of 
Jewish  thought   which   had   been   present   from 


EVE  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  PERIOD   249 

the  start  grew  unattractive  and  incomprehen- 
sible, and  tended  to  drop  from  men's  minds  or 
to  be  greatly  modified.  Such  were  some  of  the  ma- 
terialistic and  apocalyptic  forms  of  the  expecta- 
tion of  the  future,  and  also  the  earlier  confidence 
in  the  nearness  of  the  final  catastrophe.  As  time 
passes  we  have  to  look  more  and  more  to  the  ideas 
which  Greek  philosophy  brought  to  Christian 
thinkers,  and  less  and  less  to  the  Jewish  rabbis  and 
apocalyptists  for  explanation  of  the  dark  places  of 
Christian  writing.  This  is  true,  as  we  shall  pres- 
ently see,  with  respect  not  only  to  the  positive 
Jewish  ideas  carried  over  into  Christianity,  but 
also  to  those  conflicts  with  Jewish  affirmations 
w^hich  had  by  reaction  profoundly  influenced  the 
direction  of  Christian  thought. 

Of  greater  importance  for  our  present  purpose 
is  the  other  process  of  change,  by  which  elements, 
at  first  less  conspicuous  and  by  no  means  charac- 
teristic or  dominant,  but  yet  already  present  and 
full  of  germinal  power,  were  persistently  growing 
into  readiness  to  become  marked  characteristics  of 
the  following  ages.  This  latter  change  was  not, 
any  more  than  the  former  one,  a  mere  fall  in 
men's  character  and  ideals  from  the  purity  of 
primitive  Christianity.  Nor  was  it  a  mere  substi- 
tution of  the  more  complete  and  highly  organized 


250  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

for  the  primitive  and  simple.  It  was  such  a 
growth  as  all  human  life  shows,  wherever  life 
exists,— the  change,  accompanied  by  some  gains 
and  some  losses,  by  which  the  various  needs  and 
impulses  of  the  human  spirit  receive  in  successive 
ages  their  satisfaction,  and  which  at  the  same  time 
reflects  the  changing  environment.  The  great  and 
necessary  tasks  were  accomplished,  but  by  the 
two  processes  already  mentioned, — together  with 
others,  such  as  the  acceptance  of  wholly  new  influ- 
ences from  w^ithout,— the  peculiar  character  of  the 
apostolic  age  was  lost  and  the  Church  acquired 
new  distinctive  traits.  The  changes  which  took 
place  both  affected  thought  and  altered  outer 
circumstances  and  arrangements. 

It  is  in  connection  with  this  inquiry  that  we  can 
best  consider  the  several  important  types  of 
thought  which  appear  in  literary  form  near  the 
close  of  the  apostolic  age  and  in  some  measure 
supplement  the  thought  of  Paul.  That  these 
heralds  of  the  coming  time  do  not  necessarily  rep- 
resent any  loss  in  the  firmness  and  power  of  men's 
grasp  upon  Christianity  itself  may  be  seen  by  the 
fact  that  the  documents  to  be  discussed  include 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  and  the  Gospel  of 
John.  Whether,  indeed,  this  latter  writing  is 
most  appropriately  included  here  is  a  fair  ques- 


EVE  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  PERIOD   251 

tion;  in  reality  it  is  so  many-sided,  and  sums  up 
in  itself  so  much  of  the  thought  and  experience 
which  lay  behind  it,  that  it  altogether  defies  classi- 
fication. These  later  types  of  New  Testament 
thought  all  show  the  influence  of  Paul,  but  repre- 
sent neither  direct  development  of  his  main  ideas 
nor  flat  departure  from  them.  Before  proceeding 
to  them  we  must  first  inquire  as  to  the  immediate 
relation  of  Paul  himself  to  the  period  subsequent 
to  the  apostolic  age. 

The  positive  contribution  of  Paul  to  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  following  century  can  be  clearly 
traced;  or  at  any  rate  we  can  see  how  under  his 
influence  together  with  other  favoring  influences 
there  was  a  development  such  as  he  would  have 
rejoiced  to  see.  Certain  things  for  which  he  de- 
liberately contended  became  part  of  the  estab- 
lished common  stock  of  later  Christianity.  Many 
forces  and  conditions  doubtless  co-operated,  but 
in  the  form  in  which  the  results  stand  we  appear 
to  owe  them  to  Paul. 

In  the  first  place  his  belief  in  the  universality 
of  Christianity  became  the  unqualified  and  funda- 
mental conviction  of  the  whole  Church.  There 
seems  to  have  been  no  time  after  the  repulse  of 
the  Judaizers  in  Galatia  when  the  danger  was 
acute  that  the  Christians  in  any  large  numbers 


252  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

would  subject  themselves  to  the  Jewish  law. 
Every  year  of  missionary  advance  made  Paul's 
victory  more  secure,  and,  except  for  the  sectarian 
separatists  in  Palestine,  Jew  and  gentile  alike  are 
found  standing  on  the  great  principle  that  the 
Gospel  may  be  preached  to  every  creature  in  all 
the  nations. 

Again,  secondly,  the  conception  of  Jesus  Christ 
which  Paul  had  worked  out  and  presented,  and 
which  he  had  used  in  the  later  controversies  of  his 
life,  was  the  foundation  of  the  view  which  became 
established  in  the  Church.  A  real  human  being, 
born  of  a  woman,  born  under  the  Law,  of  the  seed 
of  David  according  to  the  flesh,  he  was  yet  in  un- 
divided identity  the  unique  Son  of  God,  existing 
in  the  form  of  God,  the  image  of  the  invisible  God, 
one  in  whom  all  the  fulness  dwells,  set  apart  the 
Son  of  God  in  power  according  to  the  Spirit  of 
holiness.  The  Church  could  not  spare  either  side 
of  this  double  conception,  and  as  one  side  or  the 
other  was  challenged,  the  essential  elements  in 
Paul's  thought  of  Christ  carried  Christianity 
through  more  than  one  crisis  of  controversy. 

A  third  development  in  the  direction  set  by 
Paul  was  the  growing  consciousness  of  the  unity 
of  the  Church.  He  had  been  at  pains  to  secure 
that  unity  by  arranging  practical  succor  to  the 


ev:e  of  the  catholic  period  253 

poor  at  Jerusalem,  and  by  urging  the  common 
relation  to  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism,  one 
God  and  Father  of  all.  It  had  lain  near  his  heart, 
and  had  seemed  to  him  a  condition  of  healthy 
progress.  In  the  development  of  the  Catholic 
Church  no  tendency  was  stronger,  until  we  see  at 
last  the  great,  though  loosely  knit,  organism  strong 
enough  to  exclude  heretics  from  its  body  and  to 
establish  itself  as  an  object  of  faith,  an  article  of 
the  Creed  itself. 

Fourthly,  that  great  and  most  salutary  advance 
which  Paul  made  in  the  mode  of  conceiving  the 
Holy  Spirit  became  a  permanent  possession  of  the 
Church.  He  had  brought  this  fundamental  ele- 
ment in  Jewish  and  Christian  religious  thought 
up  from  the  plane  of  physical  action  where  it 
stood  in  the  minds  of  many,  and  transformed  it 
into  a  conception  of  God's  activity  conformable 
in  character  and  emphasis  to  the  moral  and  spirit- 
ual thought  of  God  to  which  the  religion  had  at- 
tained. Instead  of  a  drawback  and  hindrance  to 
what  we  have  come  to  call  "spiritual"  religion, 
the  idea  of  the  Holy  Spirit  became  an  elevating 
and  ennobling  force.  We  owe  this  great  service 
to  Paul.  It  alone  would  be  enough  to  justify  his 
claim  to  eminence  in  Christian  history. 

Fifthly,  we  can  see  progress  following  the  di- 


254  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

rection  of  Paul's  own  efforts  in  the  moral  gain 
that  we  find  in  the  half -century  after  Paul's 
death.  Not  in  vain  was  every  one  of  Paul's  epis- 
tles so  largely  occupied  with  moral  precepts.  He 
—and  the  others  like  him  who  taught  the  genera- 
tions—succeeded in  fixing  in  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness the  idea  that  a  Christian  was  bound 
by  his  profession  to  be  better  than  other  men. 
The  result  was  not  only  a  noble  moral  ideal  but  a 
degree  of  actual  moral  achievement  to  which  the 
Christian  defenders  of  the  faith  in  the  second 
century  could  point  with  well  justified  pride. 
Their  claims  are  substantiated  by  the  testimonies 
of  heathen  writers,  so  soon  as  these  begin.  From 
Pliny  at  the  opening  of  the  century  on  we  can  see 
that  the  Christian  churches  made  upon  the  outside 
world  the  impression  of  superior  virtue.  The  dark 
rumors  of  unnatural  vices  practised  in  secret 
were  invariably  seen  by  those  who  made  investi- 
gation to  be  without  the  least  shadow  of  founda- 
tion in  fact;  and  we  may,  indeed,  suspect  that 
those  slanderous  tales  were  but  the  expression  of 
the  cynical  judgment  that  somewhere  in  this  fair- 
seeming  Christian  society  there  must  lurk  a  root 
of  peculiarly  horrible  secret  evil.  Even  the 
'hostility  and  contempt  of  Celsus,  in  the  second 
half  of  the  second  century,   could  not  deny  the 


EVE  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  PERIOD    255 

earnest  morality  of  the  Christians;  and  the  ob- 
servant and  wholly  unpartisan  physician  Galen, 
writing  at  about  the  same  time,  gives  striking  tes- 
timony to  the  general  high  level  of  Christian 
morality,  saying  that  some  of  them  have  advanced 
so  far  in  self-control  and  the  keen  pursuit  of 
virtue  that  they  stand  no  whit  behind  the 
philosophers  themselves.  The  patronizing  tone  of 
this  remark  does  not  detract  from,  but  rather  en- 
hances, its  value  as  testimony. 

In  these  five  notable  respects,  then,  Paul's  ef- 
forts were  crowned  with  success,— in  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  freedom  of  Christianity  from  the 
Jewish  religion ;  in  the  maintenance  of  the  essen- 
tial elements  of  his  conception  of  Christ;  in  the 
preservation  of  the  unity  of  the  Church;  in  the 
purification  of  the  conception  of  the  Holy  Spirit ; 
in  the  steady  improvement  of  Christian  morals. 
They  cover  a  wide  field,  for  they  relate  to  the 
essential  nature  of  God,  of  Christ,  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  to  the  nature  of  the  Church,  and  to 
the  practical  moral  welfare  of  its  members.  All 
these  results  were  present  in  ordinary  Christian- 
ity when  toward  the  end  of  the  second  century  the 
Church  found  itself  well  established,  with  Chris- 
tian sacred  books,  distinct  ritual,  sacraments, 
creed,  and  episcopal  organization.     The  contribu- 


256  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

tion  of  Paul  was  not  the  only  factor  in  the  his- 
torical development,  even  in  those  directions  which 
I  have  mentioned,  and  its  exact  weight  is  hard  to 
determine,  but  it  was  certainly  a  factor  of  power- 
ful influence. 

This  contribution,  however,  does  not  cover  the 
whole,  nor  include  some  of  the  most  distinctive 
parts,  of  Paul's  thought,  and  it  does  not  at  all 
account  for  most  of  the  traits  which  specially 
characterized  the  following  period.  In  view  of  the 
eminence  of  Paul  in  the  apostolic  age  and  of  the 
reverent  honor  which  the  Church  paid  to  his 
name,  we  should  have  expected  to  find  that  the 
next  ages  built  on  him  as  the  Latin  church  built 
on  Augustine  or  as  the  German  church  has  built 
on  Luther,  so  that  what  separated  Paul  from  other 
Christians  would  have  appeared  in  the  type  of  a 
Pauline  Christianity.  But  this  was  not  the  case. 
The  second  century  and  the  Old  Catholic  Church 
are  by  no  means  distinctively  Pauline. 

Thus,  to  take  one  striking  instance,  his  doctrine 
of  justification  by  faith  was  lost.  Men  did  not 
see  that  it  meant  forgiveness  in  contradistinction 
to  desert;  and  only  about  thirty  years  after 
Paul's  death  Clement  of  Rome,  evidently  with  en- 
tire unconsciousness  that  he  is  not  true  to  the 
apostle's   doctrine,  talks  of  salvation  as  gained 


EVE  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  PERIOD    257 

"by  faith  and  hospitality."  Again,  Paul  declared 
that  the  whole  legal  system  was  done  away  in 
Christ,  and  that  we  are  not  under  any  kind  of 
law,  but  stand  in  the  freedom  of  faith;  but  the 
Church  presently  transformed  the  Gospel  itself 
into  a  New  Law.  Paul's  high  thought  of  the  im- 
mediacy of  contact  with  God  opened  to  men 
through  Christ  was  followed  in  the  Church  by  a 
sacerdotal  system,  with  priests  to  mediate  the 
grace  of  God.  And  so  on;  it  has  been  well  said 
by  Hamack  that  the  Apostle  Paul  became  to  the 
second  century  "not  a  basis  but  a  ferment." 

This  failure  to  preserve  the  distinctive  Pauline 
doctrine  came  about  partly  because  the  Greek, 
like  the  modern,  mind  found  difficulty  in  under- 
standing Paul's  fundamentally  Jewish  mode  of 
thought  and  expression,  partly  because  in  solving 
the  new  problems  of  new  circumstances  men  of 
earnest  purpose  but  inferior  devotion  to  a  purely 
spiritual  and  ethical  religion  failed  to  apply 
Paul's  governing  principles,  and  substituted  other 
guiding  thoughts  for  Paul's.  For  this  Paul 
himself  is  not  wholly  free  from  responsibility. 
His  writings  themselves  contain  what  may  be 
called  Pauline  germs  of  unpauline  thought,  points 
of  contact  with  dangerous  tendencies  of  the 
church  at  large,  all  of  them,  however,  elements 


258  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

which  he  himself  always  kept  subordinate  to  his 
central  thought  of  redemption  through  faith. 

Such  being  in  brief  outline  the  relation,  both 
positive  and  negative,  of  Paul  to  the  thought  of 
the  succeeding  age  of  the  Church,  we  turn  to  look 
at  the  starting  points  in  the  apostolic  age,  both  in 
and  apart  from  Paul,  of  certain  lines  of  progress 
by  which  grew  up  some  of  the  controlling  forces 
in  the  Catholic  Church.  In  so  doing  we  shall 
naturally  pass  over  those  advances  which  were 
merely  the  consolidation  and  perfection  of  traits 
already  dominant,  and  shall  try  to  look  at  those 
less  characteristic  elements  of  early  apostolic 
thought  and  life  which  later  became  strong  and 
prominent  in  Catholic  Christianity.  AVe  are  seek- 
ing, that  is  to  say,  for  the  explanation  in  the  apos- 
tolic age  of  those  things  which  differentiated  the 
second  century  and  the  Old  Catholic  Church  from 
it.  These  tendencies  to  difference  had  in  some 
cases  had  a  considerable  scope  before  our  period 
ended;  they  were  partly  for  good  and  partly  for 
evil,  but  the  discrimination  between  their  good 
and  their  evil  has  proved  possible  only  with  the 
aid  of  a  long  perspective.  No  one  of  the  changes 
was  due  to  wilfulness.  They  rather  represent  the 
honest  efforts  of  devout  men  to  understand  and 
apply  the  religion  in  which  they  lived. 


EVE  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  PERIOD   259 

Perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  and  important 
of  these  tendencies  which,  while  clearly  present  in 
the  apostolic  age,  are  more  characteristic  of  the 
succeeding  time,  is  what  may  be  called  the  ten- 
dency to  intellectualism  in  Christian  thought,  out 
of  which  grew  the  dogmatic  Christianity  of  later 
ages.  Christianity  was  at  first  a  certain  kind  of 
life,  led  in  and  ruled  by  a  certain  thought  of  God, 
namely  as  gracious  Father.  To  Paul  this  was  still 
the  essence  of  Christianity,  although,  as  we  have 
seen,  he  held  fast  to  this  thought  not  because  Jesus 
had  said  so  and  had  illustrated  the  possibility  of 
this  life  in  his  own  personal  character,  but  because 
this  thought  of  God  seemed  to  Paul  the  necessary 
inference  from  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ.  But 
various  forces  were  at  work  to  cause  men  to  make 
the  Christian  facts  the  basis  of  an  intellectual 
system.  Whereas  Paul  said  ''faith"  and  meant  an 
act  of  the  soul,  men  came  soon  to  say  ''the  faith" 
and  to  mean  a  body  of  doctrine.  It  is  evident  that 
the  transmission  of  Christianity  in  missionary 
work  required,  and  must  ever  more  and  more 
have  stimulated,  the  formulation  by  believers  of 
Christian  doctrine,  which  could  be  apprehended 
and  appropriated  by  new  converts.  Life  to  be 
conveyed  requires  those  who  would  transmit  it  to 
give  it  form  in  intelligible  ideas ;  the  necessity  and 


260  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

the  danger  of  this  are  both  apparent.  Again 
the  secular  education  of  some  Christians  and  the 
inevitable  and  legitimate  disposition  of  men  to 
philosophize  would  in  any  case  have  sooner  or 
later  led  to  an  increasingly  intellectual  apprehen- 
sion of  Christianity. 

Now  these  and  other  causes  found  their  special 
occasion  in  a  definite  intellectual  problem  which 
was  present.  There  were  in  existence  two  modes 
of  vital  approach  to  Jesus  Christ,  the  one  con- 
ceiving him  to  be  by  his  teaching  the  expounder 
to  men  of  God  the  universal  Father,  the  other  to 
be  in  his  death  the  conveyer  to  men  of  God's 
saving  grace.  These  two  tendencies,  which  could 
naively  coexist,  and  which  may  be  conveniently, 
though  inadequately,  described  as  the  tendencies 
of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  and  of  Paul,  demanded 
to  be  brought  into  a  stable  reasoned  relation  to 
one  another.  Such  a  reasoned  relation  is  not  at 
all  wrought  out  by  Paul.  Still  less  is  it  indicated 
in  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  Who  was  this  being  who 
combined  these  two  aspects  ?  How  give  due  weight 
to  both  sides?  How  explain  the  identity  of  the 
Jesus  of  history  and  the  Christ  of  faith  ?  By  the 
close  of  the  apostolic  age  these  questions  must  have 
been  pressing  on  many  Christian  thinkers. 

The  Gospel  of  John  offered  itself  as  the  solution 


FOURTH  GOSPEL  THEOLOGY       261 

for  the  problem  set  by  these  two  tendencies,  and 
the  answer  which  it  gave  worked  in  favor  of  the 
tendency  which  we  have  called  intellectualism. 
It  is  likely  that  the  thought  of  John  is  dependent 
upon  the  ideas  spread  far  and  wide  by  Paul's 
preaching.  The  universalism  and  unity  of  the 
Church  are  found  fully  assumed  and  enforced 
in  John,  and  so  is  the  conception  of  Jesus 
Christ  as  thoroughly  human  and  yet  unique 
in  his  nature  as  the  Son  of  God,  as  having 
come  from  an  existence  in  the  form  of  God  and 
taken  on  himself  human  life  and  died  and 
risen  again  to  glorified  life  with  God.  Through 
faith  in  him,  according  to  John,  men  are 
saved  both  from  the  guilt  and  from  the  power  of 
sin,  gaining  both  forgiveness  and  moral  renewal. 
Many  of  the  specific  forms  of  Paul's  thought, 
such  as  the  term  justification  and  the  contrast  of 
faith  and  works,  John  does  not  have,  but  in  these 
cases  the  underlying  idea  is  nevertheless  ade- 
quately represented.  On  the  other  hand  John 
writes  wdth  full  knowledge  of  and  plain  regard 
for  the  traditions  of  Jesus'  life  current  in  the 
Church.  He  takes  something  from  their  supply, 
adds  something  of  his  own,  and  shows  his  attitude 
toward  that  mode  of  approach  to  the  Saviour  by 
throwing  his  whole  book,  which  is,  as  we  have 


262  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

seen,  in  primary  intention  not  so  mucli  a  narra- 
tive as  a  theological  treatise,  into  the  form  of  a 
Gospel. 

The  means  by  which  John  makes  this  combina- 
tion, and  likewise  the  point  in  which  he  illus- 
trates a  theological  advance  upon  Paul  of  enor- 
mous significance,  is  the  introduction  of  the  idea 
of  Revelation  as  the  central  pivot  of  his  thought. 
"What  redemption  was  in  Paul 's  system,  revelation 
is  in  John's.  Not  that  the  less  prominent  idea 
was  wholly  absent  in  the  case  of  either,  but  on 
each  side  one  idea  is  prominent  and  central,  the 
other  secondary.  Paul  knew  that  in  Christ  there 
came  to  men  the  revelation  of  eternal  truth  which 
had  been  hidden  from  the  past  ages,  but  his 
thought  clung  to  the  dramatic  and  historical,  and 
centered  about  the  grace  of  God  not  only  made 
known,  but  made  real  in  the  cross  of  Calvary.  So, 
likewise,  John  is  not  forgetful  that  God  at  a  defi- 
nite moment  sent  his  Son,  and  that  the  blood  of 
Jesus  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin,  but  in  his  funda- 
mental thought  he  dwells  far  more  than  does  Paul 
on  the  idea  of  a  world  of  spiritual  things  in  which 
permanent  relations  eternally  obtain,  relations 
a  knowledge  of  which  has  now  been  brought  to 
men.     His  universe  is  less  like  the  moving  pano- 


FOURTH  GOSPEL  THEOLOGY       263 

rama  of  history  and  more  like  an  organism  of  mu- 
tually related  elements. 

This  central  idea  of  Eevelation  John  expresses 
by  the  use  of  the  term  Logos,  and  thus  brings 
Christianity  into  closer  contact  with  secular 
thought  about  metaphysics  and  the  philosophy 
of  religion.  Paul  had  occasionally  found  help  in 
expressions  drawn  from  the  Stoic  and  Alexandrian 
philosophy,  to  which  this  idea  pertained,  but  he 
had  never  given  it  the  prominence  that  John  does, 
nor  had  he  found  in  it,  and  in  the  idea  of  revela- 
tion which  corresponds  to  one  side  of  it,  the  su- 
preme explanation  of  the  life  and  person  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Greek  philosophy  had  thought  of  God  as 
the  Absolute  and  Unconditioned,  transcendent 
and  remote,  unapproachable  in  his  perfect  holi- 
ness. But  at  the  same  time  the  requirements  of 
thought  no  less  than  those  of  religion  demanded 
that  God  be  conceived  as  creator  and  rational 
ground  of  the  world,  as  sustaining  it  and  active 
in  it.  To  bridge  over  the  chasm  between  God  and 
the  world,  impassable  for  the  mere  Absolute,  phi- 
losophers began  to  ascribe  to  the  ideas  of  God  crea- 
tive power  and  a  kind  of  substance  of  their  own. 
These  ideas  are  all  summed  up  in  the  Reason  of 
God,  in  which  these  thinkers,  aided  by  the 
ambiguity  of  the  Greek  term  logos  as  meaning 


264  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

both  reason  and  word,  found  included  both  the 
reason  of  God  and  the  expression  of  God.  Thus 
the  thought  of  the  abstract  Absolute  became  sup- 
plemented in  the  interest  of  the  practical  needs 
of  thought.  The  Logos  was  a  conception  capable  of 
combining  many  apparently  inconsistent  aspects. 
It  was  at  once  God  and  not  God.  It  was  at  once 
immanent  in  God  as  his  reason,  and  flowed  forth 
from  him  as  his  expression.  It  possessed  a 
shadow  of  independent  existence,  but  was  capable 
of  complete  absorption  in  the  idea  of  God. 

The  purpose  of  this  conception  is  plain.  It  was 
merely  a  mode  of  so  analyzing  the  thought  of  God 
that  both  sides,  his  high  transcendence  in  the 
heavens  and  his'  immanence  in  the  world  for  pur- 
poses of  creation  and  government  and  religion, 
might  have  justice  done  them.  The  mode  of 
thought  known  as  the  Logos-philosophy  was  wide- 
spread in  various  schools  of  Greek  philosophy,  and 
in  the  first  century  had  evidently  filtered  down 
into  popular  speech.  It  had  also  points  of  contact 
with  older  Hebrew  ideas  which  must  have  made  it 
all  the  more  welcome  to  a  Jew,  such  as  was  beyond 
question  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  We 
need  only  to  recall  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  in 
which,  when  God  created  the  heavens  and  the 
earth,  he  "spake"  and  it  was  done. 


FOURTH  GOSPEL  THEOLOGY       265 

Now  the  Gospel  of  John  has  a  two-fold  pur- 
pose. First,  the  author  wishes  to  call  attention 
to  the  human  characteristics  of  Jesus  Christ.  He 
is  loyal  to  the  tradition  of  the  Church  and  the 
Gospels.  There  have  arisen  teachers  who  deny 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh,  and  so  con- 
fess not  Jesus.  ^  They  were  evidently  incipient 
Gnostics.  The  efforts  of  these  thinkers  were  di- 
rected to  removing  Christianity  from  its  base  and 
roots  in  the  real  personality  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 
They  were  transforming  it  into  a  speculative 
system  like  one  of  those  in  which  in  the  second 
century  oriental  and  Greek  philosophy  combined 
to  enter  into  competition  with  the  religion 
of  Jesus  Christ  for  the  faith  of  the  world.  John 
writes  his  Gospel  in  large  measure  to  declare 
unto  men  that  which  we  men  have  heard,  that 
which  we  have  seen  with  our  eyes,  that  which 
we  beheld,  and  our  hands  handled,  the  life  which 
was  manifested  unto  us.-  And  he  does  so  by 
writing  a  Gospel  in  which  he  will  not  merely 
record  the  common  public  tradition  of  the 
Church,  but  will  set  forth  the  significance  of 
the  incarnation,  and  by  constant  reference  to 
the  human  traits  of  the  picture  will  impress  on 

^  I  John  iv.  2  f.,  li.  22. 
3 1  John  i.  1  f. 


266  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

men  that  the  fundamental  idea  of  the  Christian 
religion  is  not  the  Word  of  God  eternally  exist- 
ing invisible,  the  object  of  thought  and  meta- 
physical speculation,  but  is  Jesus  Christ,  known 
to  us  in  his  personal  human  character  by  ac- 
quaintance on  this  earth,  an  acquaintance  which 
has  been  preserved  in  trustworthy  tradition  to 
our  own  time.  In  this  fundamental  insistence 
that  not  the  Logos  but  the  incarnate  Logos  is 
essential  to  Christianity,  the  Fourth  Gospel  has 
probably  rendered  its  greatest  service.  For 
whatever  may  be  said  of  idealizing  tendencies  and 
a  veil  of  later  abstract  thought,  yet  the  picture 
which  we  gain  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  Gospel  of 
John  is  the  same  in  its  most  important  elements 
as  that  which  we  have  from  Matthew,  Mark  and 
Luke.  The  loving,  sympathizing  Jesus,  dying  to 
save  the  world,  and  his  teaching  of  the  Father  in 
heaven  and  the  duty  of  man,  has  always  been 
recognized  by  the  Church  as  the  same,  through 
whichever  of  the  four  mediums  he  De  seen. 

At  the  same  time  the  other  side  of  the  author's 
purpose  in  his  Gospel  must  not  be  overlooked  or 
minimized.  The  writer  wishes  to  interpret  Jesus 
Christ  and  to  give  a  philosophy  of  Christianity. 
Only  so  can  he  fully  confute  the  opposing  thinkers 
of  whom  I  have  spoken,  and  otherwise  he  need 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  HEBREWS    267 

hardly  have  added  another  to  the  already  exist- 
ing Gospels.  Jesus  Christ,  the  mysterious  but 
real  human  person,  whom  men  have  known  in  the 
flesh,  is,  he  says,  the  eternal  Word  of  God,  the 
Logos  whose  existence  philosophy  has  already  by 
its  own  methods  come  to  postulate.  In  Jesus 
Christ  the  Word  became  flesh  and  dwelt  among 
us.  The  divine  agent  in  creation  was  at  the  same 
time  the  divine  medium  of  revelation.  The  con- 
summation of  aU  his  revelation  of  God  was 
reached  when  he  himself  appeared  in  human 
form.  He  was  the  Light  of  the  World,  and  in 
him  as  Light  the  Truth  is  brought  to  men. 

We  see  here  a  long  step  taken  toward  the  in- 
tellectual apprehension  of  Christianity  as  new 
knowledge.  The  tendency  is  in  itself  good,  for 
only  in  intelligible  form  can  religion  live  in  a 
world  of  educated  life  or  be  transmitted  from  one 
generation  to  another.  And  the  Gospel  of  John 
does  not  limit  its  view  to  this  conception.  The 
incarnate  Word  has  brought  not  only  light  but 
life.  **And  this  is  life  eternal,  that  they  should 
know  thee,  the  only  true  God,  and  him  whom  thou 
didst  send,  even  Christ  Jesus."  Life  comes  from 
light ;  for  it  rests  on  the  knowledge  of  God.  Both 
grace  and  truth  came  through  Jesus  Christ. 
John  does  not  by  any  means  transform  Chris- 


268  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

tianity  into  a  mere  system  of  knowledge.  He  is  as 
well  aware  as  Paul  that  salvation  primarily  con- 
sists in  forgiveness  and  moral  renewal.  His 
knowledge  itself  is  not  mere  knowledge  of  facts, 
but  is  a  noble  personal  acquaintance  with  the 
character  of  God ;  but  for  that  very  reason  he 
gives  to  the  term  knowledge  a  place  in  his  thought 
which  it  did  not  hold  with  Paul.  And  thus  he 
joined  in  the  inevitable  progress  toward  a  stage 
where  acceptance  of  or  submission  to  a  body  of 
doctrine,  and  not  merely  personal  faith  in  Christ 
and  loving  devotion  to  him,  was  to  be  demanded 
of  everyone  who  would  gain  entrance  to  the  Chris- 
tian Church. 

Paul  pursued  theology  and  used  philosophical 
terms  in  order  to  deal  with  practical  problems  in 
his  own  life  and  that  of  those  who  were  spiritually 
dependent  on  him.  John  seems  to  enter  on 
philosophical  inquiries  not  only  for  practical  rea- 
sons, but  also  that  he  may  gain  a  clear  intellectual 
view  of  the  meaning  of  Christianity  and  its 
place  in  the  divine  universe  and  in  history.  In 
consequence,  while  Paul  touches  the  depths  of  the 
sinner's  soul,  and  kindles  the  moral  sentiments, 
and  makes  the  heart  beat  quicker  with  the  inspir- 
ing rush  of  his  Christian  enthusiasm,  John  has 


FOURTH  GOSPEL  THEOLOGY       269 

been  on  the  whole  more  permanently  satisfying 
to  the  philosophical  theologian. 

Somewhat  earlier  than  the  Gospel  of  John  was 
probably  written  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  It, 
too,  uses  the  conception  of  the  Logos,  and  it,  too, 
marks  a  step  toward  intellectualism  and  dogmatic 
Christianity.  Much  more  clearly  than  John,  has 
the  author  of  Hebrews  been  influenced  by  Paul. 
So  much  is  this  the  case  that  it  was  for  long  be- 
lieved that  Paul  was  the  author  of  the  anonymous 
epistle,  and  that  is  still  the  authoritative  judg- 
ment of  the  Roman  Catholic  church.  Who  ac- 
tually wrote  it  is  no  matter.  As  Origen,  in  the 
third  century,  said,  after  discussing  the  question 
at  length,  it  is  something  which  God  alone  knows. 
It  was  probably  written  after  the  year  90,  not  to 
Hebrews  but  to  gentile  Christians,  perhaps  in 
Italy. 

The  author's  purpose  of  writing  is  purely 
practical,  and  the  plan  and  method  of  the  whole 
can  only  be  understood  when  that  is  recognized. 
It  is  a  tract,  designed  to  confirm  and  revive  the 
enthusiasm  for  the  Christian  religion  of  persons 
who,  partly  under  the  stress  of  persecution,  partly 
through  general  lack  of  zeal,  are  in  danger  of 
lapsing  into  religious  indifference  and  worldly 
life.    This  is  a  practical  purpose,  but  the  writer 


270  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

betrays  throughout  not  merely  a  practical  but  an 
intellectual,  philosophizing,  interest  in  his  re- 
ligion. He  is  a  man  (very  probably  a  Jew)  who 
has  had  good  literary  training  in  the  Alexandrian 
philosophy,  with  which  he  shows  himself  well  ac- 
quainted. That  he  writes  as  a  literary  man  is 
one  of  the  reasons  why  his  epistle  is  far  less  in- 
teresting than  those  of  the  less  trained  and  more 
human  Paul.  He  must  have  worked  out  his  views 
of  theology  with  much  the  same  interest  in  un- 
derstanding his  own  life  and  the  world  in  which 
he  found  himself  that  a  modern  student  of  the 
philosophy  of  Christianity  would  show.  He  has 
the  idea  of  revelation,  just  as  John  has,  and  he 
begins  with  it,— "God,  having  of  old  time  spoken 
unto  the  fathers  in  the  prophets  by  divers  por- 
tions and  in  divers  manners,  hath  at  the  end  of 
these  days  spoken  unto  us  in  his  Son.''  He  has 
a]so  the  clear  notion  of  redemption  as  the  cleans- 
ing of  the  conscience  from  guilt  and  as  the  bring- 
ing to  naught  of  the  power  of  sin.  His  great  con- 
tribution consists  in  his  presentation  of  Christian- 
ity as  the  final  and  absolute  religion,  the  sphere 
both  of  revelation  and  of  redemption.  This  is  im- 
plicit in  Paul  and  in  John ;  the  author  of  Hebrews 
has  made  it  explicitly  the  key  to  the  whole  prob- 
lem.    All  that  went  before  was  the  shadow  and 


FOURTH  GOSPEL  THEOLOGY       271 

type;  Christianity  is  the  reality,  the  heavenly 
"idea"  of  religion,  in  which  all  phenomena  of  true 
religion  have  imperfectly  shared,  and  which  has 
now  been  revealed  to  men  in  its  completeness  by 
the  Son  of  God.  The  writer  works  out  this  concep- 
tion with  a  marvelous  affluence  of  illustration,  and 
unless  the  central  thought  be  firmly  held  in  mind, 
the  reader  is  in  danger  of  finding  himself  over- 
whelmed by  the  variety  of  ways  in  which  this 
Alexandrian  form  of  Plato's  doctrine  of  ideas  is 
applied  to  the  various  aspects  of  the  Redeemer 
and  his  work.  Underlying  it  all  is  the  determi- 
nation that  the  loyalty  and  enthusiasm  of  the 
readers  shall  be  stirred  by  the  sense  of  privilege 
and  responsibility  which  the  situation  imposes. 
**  Therefore  we  ought  to  give  the  more  earnest 
heed  to  the  things  that  were  heard ;  .  .  .  for 
how  shall  we  escape,  if  we  neglect  so  great 
salvation  ? ' ' 

The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  then,  signifies  the 
formal  entrance  of  the  Greek  spirit  and  method 
into  Christianity.  Something  of  academic  finish 
is  here  seen,  and  some  loss  of  the  earlier  sugges- 
tiveness  and  eager  outreach  beyond  the  power  of 
expression.  The  idea  of  faith  has  become  more 
abstract  and  intellectual.  ''Faith  is  assurance 
of   things   hoped   for,   conviction   of    things   not 


272  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

seen/'  The  very  existence  here  of  a  grave  defi- 
nition of  faith  stands  in  a  certain  contrast  to 
the  personal,  emotional,  naive  faith  of  Paul.  In 
general  we  find  ourselves  in  an  intellectual  and 
almost  dogmatic  atmosphere.  The  thought  of  the 
work  and  sacrifice  of  Christ  is  developed  in  that 
same  spirit,  and  in  consequence  Hebrews  has  in 
some  respects  influenced  the  form  of  Christian 
theology  more  than  Paul  has  done.  We  can  see 
this  in  the  Church  doctrines  of  the  person  of 
Christ  and  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  which  are  full 
of  the  language  and  thought  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews.  In  this  epistle  we  can  trace  the  tend- 
ency which  came  to  its  completion  in  Thomas 
Aquinas;  the  author  of  Hebrews  is  the  school- 
man of  the  New  Testament. 

A  third  example  of  this  same  tendency,  besides 
the  Gospel  of  John  and  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews, brings  us  still  nearer  to  Paul.  The  three 
so-called  Pastoral  Epistles,  bearing  Paul's  name 
and  addressed  to  Timothy  and  to  Titus,  may  have 
been  written  shortly  after  the  year  100,  but  they 
are  naturally  included  within  the  apostolic  age 
because  they  present  themselves  in  the  name  of  an 
apostle,  and  seem  in  spirit  to  belong  rather  to  the 
end  of  the  earlier  than  to  the  beginning  of  the 
new  period.    The  characteristic  representatives  of 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  HEBREWS    273 

the  new  period  wrote  in  their  own  names.  Such 
were  Ignatius,  Polycarp,  Papias,  Justin;  in  the 
Pastorals  we  have  at  least  the  name  of  Paul. 

Out  of  the  turn  toward  intellectualism  has 
come  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles  something  not  un- 
like the  later  conception  of  authoritative  dogma. 
We  do  not  find  here,  indeed,  the  lofty  intellectual 
apprehension  of  Christianity  which  John  or  He- 
brews offers  us,  but  the  same  tendency  is  seen  in 
the  reliance  which  is  put  upon  transmitted  and 
traditional  doctrine  as  a  safeguard  against  error. 
''The  sound  doctrine"  is  a  phrase  unknown  to 
Paul  but  here  often  repeated.  It  is  the  body  of 
Christian  teaching  which  the  elders  have  received 
and  must  transmit  unchanged,  the  deposit  of  the 
faith.  In  that  very  term  ' '  the  faith ' '  we  see  the 
changed  point  of  view.  The  Christian  "holds  the 
mystery  of  the  faith, "^  the  apostate  rejects  "the 
faith."  We  note  that  it  is  not  Paul's  "faith,"  an 
act,  the  most  intimate  and  personal,  of  the  soul, 
but  the  Faith  as  an  object  of  intellectual  belief. 
To  see  the  whole  contrast  one  has  but  to  think  of 
Paul's  deep-rooted  sense  of  the  immediate  spirit- 
ual control  under  which  he  himself  and  all  the 
members  of  his  churches  stood.  They  all  speak 
not  by  book  nor  by  tradition  but  by  original 

II  Tim.  ill.  9. 


274  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

knowledge  and  vision.  The  Epistle  to  the  Colos- 
sians  furnishes  a  good  means  of  comparing  Paul's 
method  with  that  of  the  Pastoral  Epistles.  At 
Colossae  he  was  giving'  warnings  against  danger- 
ous teachers  who,  like  those  later  ones  against 
whom  the  Pastorals  direct  their  polemics,  com- 
bined practical  asceticism  with  dangerous  specu- 
lation. But  in  Colossians  the  appeal  is  nowhere 
to  any  authority  excepting  the  authority  of  Christ 
and  of  a  divine  truth  to  be  directly  apprehended 
by  the  original  powers  of  every  man.  It  is 
through  preserving  the  union  of  every  member 
with  Christ  the  head,  that  there  will  come  sound 
life  and  the  establishment  in  faith,  ''even  as  they 
had  been  taught."  Paul  appeals  not  to  ''the 
form  of  sound  words"  but  to  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  Gospel. 

The  Christian  religion  never  can  be  and  never 
has  been  without  a  basis  of  intelligible  ideas ;  but 
periods  of  Christian  history  differ  in  the  varying 
degree  to  which  a  body  of  ideas,  or  religious 
emotion,  or  conduct,  or  the  fundamental  attitude 
and  choice  of  the  will,  is  made  prominent  in 
Christian  life  and  aspiration.  It  was  necessary 
and  fortunate  that  Christianity  early  gained  a 
form  which  made  it  possible  for  it  to  be  intellectu- 
ally grasped.     It  could  not  otherwise  have  taken 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  275 

its  place  in  the  life  of  a  world  of  active  thought, 
and  we  ought  not  unduly  to  disparage  the 
service  of  dogmatic  Christianity.  The  harm  was 
done  only  when  those  dogmas  were  erected 
into  a  means  for  the  exclusion  of  true  believers 
from  the  Church  of  Christ,  or  when  the  other 
elements  of  Christianity  were  crowded  into  the 
background.  The  intellectual  tendency  has  al- 
ways to  be  jealously  watched,  lest  it  come  to 
supplant  the  true  religion  which  it  ought  by 
rights  to  serve. 

A  second  tendency  of  which  we  see  the  germs 
already  in  the  apostolic  age,  and  which  became 
later  a  controlling  characteristic  of  Christian  life 
and  thought  is  the  tendency  to  sacramentarianism. 
More  and  more  in  the  early  centuries  rites  and 
external  acts,  baptism,  the  Lord's  supper,  the 
laying  on  of  hands,  anointing,  and  the  rest,  to- 
gether with  the  elements  used  in  these  sacred 
rites,  the  bread  and  wine,  the  water,  the  oil,  the 
salt,  and  even  objects  in  Christian  history,  like 
the  name  of  Jesus  or  the  cross,  gained  a  sacra- 
mental character.  They  became  esteemed  not 
merely  as  symbols  of  an  inner  grace  but  as  effec- 
tive mediums  whereby,  apart  from  rational  mental 
action  whether  of  knowledge  or  of  faith,  ipso 
facto,  by  the  very  operation  of  the  sacred  act 


276  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

itself,  spiritual  results  are  brought  about.  This 
tendency  corresponded  to  the  demand  of  that  age 
for  mysteries,  and  doubtless  if  the  Christian 
Church  had  been  unable  to  satisfy  this  universal 
desire  for  physical  processes  which  are  believed 
in  full  realism  to  carry  spiritual  powers,  Chris- 
tianity would  have  been  limited  in  its  field  and  its 
accomplishment.  That  the  interest  in  mysteries 
and  real  sacraments  lies  deep  in  human  nature 
and  in  the  power  of  the  human  imagination  we 
can  see  in  modern  as  well  as  ancient  times.  In 
its  worst  form  it  leads  to  magic,  in  its  higher 
forms  it  has  entered  into  the  living  interest  of 
some  of  the  most  spiritually-minded  of  intelligent 
Christians. 

Now  in  the  apostolic  age  we  see  the  preparation 
for  this  development.  Paul  sees  in  the  eucharistic 
cup  not  only  a  symbol  but  the  real  communion  of 
the  blood  of  Christ,  and  in  the  bread  a  real  and 
not  merely  figurative  participation  in  the  body  of 
Christ.  And  Paul  seems  to  find  likewise  in  the 
sacrifices  of  Jews  and  heathen  a  real  communion 
with  the  altar,  whether  it  be  God's  or  demons'. 
*' Behold  Israel  after  the  flesh:  have  not  they 
that  eat  the  sacrifices  communion  with  the  altar? 
.  .  .  .  The  things  which  the  gentiles  sacri- 
fice, they  sacrifice  to  demons  and  not  to  God :  and 


EVE  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  PERIOD   277 

I  would  not  that  ye  should  have  communion  with 
demons.  Ye  cannot  drink  the  cup  of  the  Lord 
and  the  cup  of  demons:  ye  cannot  partake  of 
the  table  of  the  Lord  and  of  the  table  of  de- 
mons."^ This  passage  does  not  stand  alone.  Others 
breathe  the  same  kind  of  thought,  as  when  Paul 
attributes  sickness  in  the  church  at  Corinth  to 
irreverence  at  the  Lord's  supper,-  and  in  the 
mysterious  reference  to  those  "that  are  baptized 
for  the  dead."^  Also  the  mystical  efficacy  ascribed 
to  baptism  as  a  burial  with  Christ  into  his  death, 
while  it  does  not  go  beyond  the  idea  of  a  symbol, 
yet  leans  in  the  direction  of  a  physical  mystery. 

So  we  find  in  the  Gospel  and  epistles  of  John 
references  to  the  water  of  baptism  and  to  the  flesh 
and  blood  of  the  Son  of  Man  which,  to  say  the 
least,  were  easily  capable  of  lending  themselves  to 
sacramentarian  use.  In  the  New  Testament,  how- 
ever, all  this  is  kept  wholly  subordinate  to  pure 
and  free  religion,  is  held  with  thoroughly  ethical 
and  spiritual  understanding.  Our  access  to  the 
grace  wherein  we  stand  is  by  faith  and  faith 
alone,  not  by  any  required  physical  processes  or 
by  the  application  of  material  elements.  Eternal 
life  is  to  know  God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  he 

1 1  Cor.  X.  18  ff. 
2  1  Cor.  xi.  30. 
'  I  Cor.  XV.  L'9. 


278  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

hath  sent.  This  proportion  was  later  lost;  the 
spirit  of  the  age  took  these  tendencies  and  used 
them  to  make  unethical  and  unspiritual  substi- 
tutes for  pure  religion. 

A  third  pregnant  idea  which  was  present  in 
Paul  and  the  apostolic  age,  but  which  gained  in 
later  Christianity  a  larger  influence,  was  the  con- 
ception of  the  exclusive  Church,  and  of  divine 
election  to  membership  in  it.  With  Paul  the 
Church  is  the  body  of  Christ,  bound  to  him  by 
faith,  which  has  found  expression  in  a  common 
religious  life.  It  is  pervaded  by  spiritual  en- 
thusiasm and  is  a  light  in  the  darkness  of  a  lost 
world  because  it  comprises  those  who  have  re- 
ceived new  life  in  Christ.  Paul  assumes  that  those 
who  have  this  new  life  of  faiith  will  have  as  one 
element  in  it  courage  to  unite  with  their  brethren 
and  stand  forth  publicly  as  Christ's  followers. 
"When  they  do  that  they  become  members  of 
the  Church.  Paul  insists  that  everyone  who  can 
say  Jesus  is  Lord  is  thereby  shown  to  be  in  pos- 
session of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  is  the  guarantee 
of  God's  acceptance.^  In  the  primitive  conditions 
of  Paul's  time  inward  attitude  and  outward  con- 
nection could  be  assumed  to  be  always  present 
together,  could  be  practically  treated  as  merely 

1 1  Cor.  xii.  3. 


EVE  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  PERIOD    279 

two  phases  of  one  state.  Through  faith  and 
therefore    through   the    Church    came    salvation. 

Now  with  the  stiffening  and  hardening  neces- 
sarily attendant  upon  life  and  struggle  in  the 
world  and  upon  the  development  of  intellectualism 
or  dogma  came  controversies  over  the  doctrines  of 
the  faith.  Under  the  stress  of  controversy  grew 
up,  as  is  always  the  case  in  such  circumstances, 
tests  for  excluding  and  including.  The  notion 
came  in  that  salvation  is  actually  mediated  not 
only  by  faith  and  the  Spirit,  but  also  by  outward 
connection  with  the  Church,  which  thus  became 
not  only  a  means  of  edification  and  a  duty  owed  to 
the  whole  Christian  community,  but  itself  a  kind 
of  sacrament.  The  change  is  wholly  parallel  to 
that  which  gave  spiritual  efScacy  to  physical 
processes.  "No  salvation  outside  the  Church" 
became  a  maxim.  We  can  see  the  germ  of  this  in 
Paul  or  in  John,  but  how  different  in  its  real 
meaning  and  tendency  was  their  doctrine ! 

So  also  with  the  counterpart  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  Church,  the  doctrine  of  election.  To  Paul  the 
thought  that  God  before  the  foundation  of  the 
world  chose  us  in  Christ  to  be  his  sons  by  his 
grace  through  faith,  was  the  warrant  of  Chris- 
tian hope  and  enthusiasm.  Election  was  not  a 
theory  about  God's  relation  to  the  world,  but  a 


280  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

fact  of  experience.  This  loyal  cry  of  the  grateful 
soul,  when  taken  as  the  basis  of  a  theology,  its 
logical  consequences  regardlessly  drawn  out,  and 
the  whole  hardened  into  a  system,  produced  ulti- 
mately Calvinism  with  the  complete  theology  of 
election  and  reprobation.  Calvinism  was  an  em- 
pirical theology.  It  accounted  admirably  for  the 
actual  facts  of  the  observed  world  by  attributing 
the  source  of  them  all  to  God ;  but  it  neglected  the 
fundamental  truth,  which  Paul  did  not  forget, 
that  the  Gospel  is  offered  to  a  whole  world  of  sin. 
A  fourth  illustration  has  already  been  touched 
upon  in  a  previous  chapter.  Asceticism  finds  in 
Paul's  writings  and  practice  many  supports.  But 
this  tendency,  which  the  later  church  so  strongly 
emphasized,  is  with  Paul  only  an  exaggeration  of 
self-control,  stimulated  by  the  fore-shortened  out- 
look into  the  future  of  this  world;  it  is  never 
found  as  a  thorough-going  theory,  nor  is  it  based 
on  a  philosophy  of  the  evil  of  this  world  or  of 
matter.  Asceticism  in  any  proper  sense  of  the 
word  is  wholly  foreign  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus, 
and  came  into  Christianity  not  from  Paul  but 
from  the  Greek  world  into  which  Christianity  was 
thrown.  Nothing  could  be  more  contrary  to  the 
facts  than  to  represent  the  Jewish  element  in 
Christianity  as  the  source  of  Catholic  asceticism. 


EVE  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  PERIOD    281 

These  four  illustrations  are  drawn  from  various 
departments  of  Christian  thought,  and  may  serve 
to  make  clear  the  way  in  which  many  of  the  dis- 
tinctive characteristics  of  the  period  succeeding 
the  apostolic  age  arose.  The  influences  which 
produced  such  vast  results  as  we  later  see  were 
not  generally  foreign  to  primitive  Christianity 
any  more  than  they  were  characteristic  of  it. 
They  were  present  in  it  because  the  primitive 
Christians  were  men,  and  men  of  their  own  time. 
The  possibility  of  a  religious  system  full  of 
dogma,  of  sacraments,  of  ecclesiasticism  or  ex- 
clusivism,  of  asceticism,  was  all  present,  and 
needed  only  favoring  circumstances  to  become 
complete  reality.  These  circumstances,  however, 
did  not  always  present  themselves.  Other  oppos- 
ing forces  sometimes  appeared,  and  dangers 
which  seemed  grave  were  averted. 

It  would  be  instructive,  but  would  lead  us  too 
far  from  our  present  purpose,  to  examine  how 
some  tendencies  which  were  not  adopted  by  the 
Catholic  Church  were  present  and  might  have  lent 
themselves  to  a  wholly  parallel  development. 
Especially  by  the  case  of  Marcion,  the  second  cen- 
tury theologian  who  isolated  and  exaggerated 
Paul's  idea  of  the  opposition  of  Jewish  Law  and 
Christian  Gospel  and  who,  if  he  had  had  his  way, 


282  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

would  have  deprived  the  Church  of  its  Old  Testa- 
ment, is  valuable  light  thrown  on  the  forces  at 
work  and  the  inevitable  changes  which  they 
wrought. 

For  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  changes 
of  which  we  have  been  speaking,  and  the  outcome 
of  which  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  religion  of 
the  Spirit  we  must  in  many  ways  regret,  were  due 
to  the  arbitrary  interference  of  misguided  men, 
or  could  have  been  avoided.  A  religion  makes  men 
over,  and  in  turn  is  made  over  in  the  hands  of  its 
adherents.  The  Christianity  of  the  year  200  was 
such  as  those  generations  with  their  special  de- 
mands and  limitations  were  able  to  use.  It  had 
taken  on  a  body,  as  it  must  in  any  case  have  done ; 
and  it  had  built  up  within  itself  into  strength 
those  previously  subordinate  elements  which  cor- 
responded to  the  special  needs  of  men  trained  by 
centuries  of  paganism  and  philosophy.  Many  of 
these  needs  were  permanent  human  needs, — of  the 
intellect,  the  imagination,  the  discipline  of  char- 
acter,—and  something  corresponding  to  them  will 
always  find  its  place  in  the  full  development  of 
any  religion  that  long  ministers  to  great  masses 
of  men.  But  the  power  and  divineness  of  Chris- 
tianity is  to  be  seen  in  the  fact  that  in  spite  of 
these  changes  the  forces  of  pure  morality  and 


EVE  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  PERIOD    283 

spiritual  religion  have  continued  in  it.  Noble 
character,  trust  in  God  as  loving  Father,  grateful 
devotion  to  Jesus  Christ,  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit, 
the  joy  of  salvation,  have  shone  forth  in  every 
age.  And  the  inherent  power  of  spiritual  religion 
to  assert  itself  and  to  conquer  ecclesiasticism  and 
religious  materialism,  to  triumph  over  asceticism 
and  dogmatism,  has  been  shown  over  and  over 
again  in  Christian  history.  This  is  the  value,  the 
priceless  value  and  inspiration  to  us  of  the  apos- 
tolic age,  that  we  find  there  Christianity,  not  in- 
deed in  formless  essence,  but  at  a  stage  when  spir- 
itual religion,  as  the  personal  inner  relation  of 
the  human  soul  to  God,  had  not  yet  found  it  neces- 
sary to  harden  itself  into  a  system,  and  when  its 
dominance  had  not  yet  had  time  to  be  overshad- 
owed by  subsidiary  things. 

We  have  considered  thus  far  the  preparation 
for  Catholic  Christianity  on  the  side  of  thought. 
To  a  contemporary  observer  perhaps  the  more 
evident  marks  of  the  progress  of  events  toward 
the  close  of  the  apostolic  period  would  have  been 
certain  changes  in  the  outer  conditions  and  rela- 
tions of  the  Church  which  must  already  have  be- 
gun to  show  themselves. 

Of  the  progress  in  organization  which  must  have 
been  made  before  the  close  of  the  first  century  we 


284  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

know  but  little,  as  in  general  we  know  but  little 
of  the  outer  conditions  of  Christianity  in  those 
years.  The  Pastoral  Epistles,  though  impossible 
to  date  exactly,  at  any  rate  show  that  considerable 
progress  toward  ecclesiastical  order  was  early 
made.  In  Paul's  day,  as  we  have  seen,  spiritually 
endowed  functionaries  were  the  leaders  of  the 
churches.  These  were  already  transformed  into 
regular  officers  before  the  time  of  the  Pastorals, 
and  we  find  there  directions  for  the  personal  char- 
acter and  for  the  duties  of  persons  who  should  be 
admitted  to  the  office  of  presbyter  or  deacon.  The 
term  bishop,  or  overseer,  appears  there  to  be  used 
as  an  appellation  descriptive  of  the  functions  of 
those  who  were  presbyters  by  office.  Of  the  rise 
of  the  single  bishop,  presiding  over  a  body  of 
presbyters,  and  distinctly  belonging  to  a  third 
order  of  the  ministry,  we  have  no  special  warning 
before  Ignatius. 

At  the  same  time  with  these  changes  the 
travelling  preachers— apostles  and  evangelists 
without  settled  homes— were  having  to  yield 
their  irresponsible  dignity  before  the  growing 
authority  of  the  local  officials.  It  is  not  im- 
probable that  the  Third  Epistle  of  John,  which 
clearly  sprang,  whoever  may  have  written  it,  from 
some  real,  concrete  situation,  reflects  the  condi- 


EVE  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  PERIOD   285 

tions  at  a  time  when  a  travelling  apostle  is  in 
danger  of  meeting  but  a  cold  reception  from  a 
local  official  ''who  loveth  to  have  the  preemi- 
nence." This  state  of  things  can  be  seen  still  more 
clearly  in  the  later  "Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apos- 
tles" where  directions  about  the  proper  reception 
to  be  accorded  to  apostles  and  prophets  and 
teachers,  and  the  proper  tests  to  be  applied,  are 
followed  by  the  significant  remark  that  bishops 
and  deacons  *'also  perform  the  service  of  the 
prophets  and  teachers."  Through  these  changes 
the  profession  of  the  ministry  as  we  know  it,  of 
which  we  do  not  learn  from  Paul,  came  into  being. 
In  general,  the  development  of  organization,  which 
took  place  with  varying  rapidity  in  different 
places  at  and  just  after  the  close  of  the  apostolic 
age  was  the  substitution  of  a  settled  state  of  life 
for  the  condition  of  a  group  of  camps  installed 
for  a  short  campaign  in  the  enemy's  country.  The 
Christian  religious  community  had  the  name  of 
parish  (parochia),  or  "group  of  sojourners," 
but  it  w^as  compelled  to  take  on  the  character 
of  a  permanent  institution  in  the  world. 

Another  kind  of  change  was  that  in  the  rela- 
tion of  Christians  to  the  outside  world,  and  in  the 
growth  of  hostility  and  persecution,  of  which  I 
have  already  spoken  in  an  earlier  chapter. 


286  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

In  concluding  our  study,  let  us  try  in  a  few 
words  to  review  this  period.  The  immediate 
goal,  or  manifest  destiny,  of  the  Christian 
Church,  was  to  spread  through  the  civilized 
world,  permeate  all  classes  of  society,  and  estab- 
lish that  great  and  powerful  brotherhood,  which, 
having  made  its  way  against  the  will  of  the 
Roman  state,  finally  proved  to  be  the  one  unifying 
force  capable  of  holding  the  Eoman  Empire  to- 
gether. Only  so  could  the  realities  of  Christianity 
be  preserved,  for  in  the  Great  World  only  the 
Great  Church  could  permanently  survive.  The 
apostolic  age  had  had  its  own  type,  primitive,  en- 
thusiastic, unformed  and  free.  This  character 
Christianity  gradually  lost  and  never  can  regain ; 
for  us  it  can  be  recovered  only  as  a  refreshing  and 
inspiring  picture  from  the  past.  But  in  this 
period  a  certain  work  was  done,  a  certain  part  of 
the  Church's  task  accomplished,  something  added 
to  what  had  before  existed.  In  answering  the 
question  what  this  contribution  was  which  the 
apostolic  age  made  to  its  successor  we  need  to  re- 
member that  it  handed  on  to  the  following  period 
not  what  it  had  itself  been,  but  what  it  had  gained 
and  what  it  was  becoming. 

Of  the  achievements  of  the  apostolic  age  two 
were  recoo-nized  at  the  time  to  be  of  fundamental 


EVE  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  PERIOD    287 

importance,  as  the  Book  of  Acts  testifies,  namely 
the  successful  advance  into  the  gentile  world  and 
the  liberty  with  respect  to  the  Jewish  law  which 
made  this  advance  fruitful.  Besides  these  two 
the  lapse  of  time  since  that  age  enables  us  to  see 
others.  Let  us  briefly  recount  them,  beginning 
with  the  most  external.  The  churches  had  already 
begun  to  have  regular  and  permanent  local  or- 
ganization. Some  of  the  lasting  forms  of  common 
life  and  worship  were  firmly  established.  The 
meetings,  the  rites,  the  charitable  aid  to  poorer 
members  were  in  practice,  and  we  live  to-day  un- 
der a  system  which  in  many  respects  goes  back  to 
that  far-off  time.  A  standard  of  Christian  morals 
had  been  formulated  and  accepted.  A  classical 
Christian  literature  had  been  created  and  to  some 
extent  recognized  for  its  true  value.  The  unity 
of  the  Church,  which  includes  the  churches,  had 
become  a  conviction,  and  one  fraught  with  mo- 
mentous consequences.  And,  finally,  the  main 
lines  had  been  laid  down  which  later  theology 
was  to  pursue.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  the 
Nicene  Creed  are  often  contrasted  in  modern  dis- 
cussions. As  between  the  two  there  are  many  re- 
spects in  which  the  teaching  of  Paul  and  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  and  John  must  be  held  to 
belong  with  the  creed.     At  the  end  of  the  apos- 


288  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

tolic  age  the  Church  possessed  what  it  had  re- 
ceived from  Jewish  Christianity,  what  it  had  been 
taught  by  Paul  and  John  and  the  other  thinkers, 
and  what  its  humbler  members  had  worked  out 
through  active  Christian  life  and  their  own 
thought.  With  these  possessions  it  was  equipped 
to  press  forward  and  conquer  the  world  for 
Christ. 


IX 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY  OF  THE 
APOSTOLIC  AGE 

Before  we  leave  the  apostolic  age,  the  task  still 
remains  of  considering  briefly  the  various  views 
about  this  period  which  earlier  and  later  times, 
and  especially  modern  critical  students,  have 
held.  This  inquiry  is  important  both  because  it 
ought  to  give  us  greater  confidence  in  the  results 
that  have  been  reached,  as  well  as  show  us  where 
the  present  problems  lie,  and  also  because  some  of 
the  controversies  which  have  centered  about  this 
period  have  made  much  noise  in  the  Church  at 
large,  while  their  echoes  still  resound  at  the  pres- 
ent day. 

First  of  all  we  have,  of  course,  the  view  which 
we  have  already  found  in  our  most  ancient  his- 
tory of  the  Christian  Church,  the  Book  of  Acts. 
The  Acts,  probably  written  within  forty  years  of 
the  latest  events  which  it  narrates,  and  itself  a 
product  as  well  as  a  history  of  the  apostolic  age, 
looks  back  on  the  earlier  half  of  our  period  and 
289 


290  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

sees  there  three  main  facts.  For  the  author  of 
Acts  the  period  of  his  book  is  distinguished,  first 
and  foremost,  as  that  in  which  took  place  the 
great  transfer  of  Christianity  from  Jerusalem  to 
the  gentile  world  and  Rome.  Christianity  began 
as  a  Jewish  sect;  when  he  takes  leave  of  his  sub- 
ject it  has  established  itself  at  many  points  in  the 
civilized  world  and  at  Rome,  the  centre  of  that 
world.  The  significance  of  this  change  he  evi- 
dently understands  fully,  and  he  brings  it  out  in 
his  history  with  rare  and  telling  skill.  This  tran- 
sition was  made  possible  by  the  second  great  fact 
upon  which  he  lays  stress,  namely  the  establish- 
ment of  freedom  for  the  gentile  churches.  At  a 
time  when  Jerusalem  was  still  the  mother  church 
and  carried  controlling  influence,  certain  Jewish 
Christians  of  Pharisaic  origin  and  Pharisaic 
spirit  tried  to  hold  the  whole  Christian  Church 
within  the  limits  of  circumcision  and  the  Jewish 
law.  If  they  had  been  successful,  the  world-wide 
development  and  permanence  of  Christianity 
would  have  been  impossible.  They  were  resisted 
by  Paul,  and  the  rightful  freedom  of  the  gentile 
churches  then  vindicated  became  acknowledged. 
The  significance  of  this  controversy  and  its  result 
was  apparent  to  the  author  of  Acts,  and  he  makes 
it  a  central  point  in  his  narrative.    The  third  fact 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY      291 

which  dominates  the  view  of  Luke  is  the  supreme 
significance  and  greatness  of  the  Apostle  Paul  in 
the  early  history  of  Christianity.  Paul  is  the 
central  figure  in  the  two  great  movements  which 
the  book  sketches,  and  in  Luke's  opinion  his  mis- 
sionary  work  created  the  framework  on  which  the 
later  Church  was  built. 

These  three  great  facts,  the  great  transition,  the 
acknowledged  Christian  freedom  on  which  it 
rested,  and  the  career  of  Paul,  are  not  exaggerated 
in  importance  by  the  significance  assigned  to  them 
by  this  writer.  He  had  a  keen  and  correct  eye 
for  facts  and  for  proportion,  and  these  three  facts 
must  always  remain  of  the  first  significance  in 
any  account  of  the  period.  Nevertheless,  in  the 
presentation  of  the  history  which  this  writer  of 
Acts  gives  we  can  detect  several  limitations.  In 
the  earlier  part  of  the  book  there  is  evident  limi- 
tation of  knowledge.  He  was  not  himself  present 
at  Jerusalem,  and  he  can  give  only  such  recollec- 
tions of  others  as  he  has  been  able,  many  years 
later,  to  gather.  In  the  book  as  a  whole,  also, 
there  is  an  obvious  limitation  in  the  point  where 
the  history  ends.  Our  curiosity  is  stimulated  as 
we  think  of  how  he  might  have  told  us  of  the  trial 
and  death  of  Paul,  of  the  coming  of  Peter  to 
Rome,  of  the  persecution  after  Nero's  fire,  of  the 


292  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

progress  of  events  in  Asia  Minor,  of  the  effect  on 
Christianity  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  of 
the  later  history  of  John. 

But  there  are  other  limitations  of  a  different 
sort.  Not  to  speak  here  of  possible  limitations  of 
accuracy,  arising  from  the  later  writer's  imperfect 
power  of  understanding  earlier  conditions,  there 
are  many  matters  about  which  we  should  like  to 
know,  or  to  know  more,  and  of  which  the  author 
must  have  had  knowledge,  yet  to  which  he  makes 
but  slight  or  no  allusion.  Some  of  these  we 
know  to  have  occupied  a  prominent  place  in  the 
life  of  the  age,  for  we  can  read  references  to  them 
in  Paul,  or  can  trace  their  working  in  the  result- 
ing conditions  of  a  later  time.  Some  are  single 
incidents,  like  the  details  of  Paul's  relations  to 
the  Corinthians  and  Galatians,  others  are  more 
general  matters.  For  instance,  we  do  not  detect 
in  Acts  any  development  in  Christian  doctrine. 
Freedom  from  the  Law  is  indeed  a  mooted  ques- 
tion, but  the  writer  does  not  conceive  that  there 
was  here  any  growth  in  thought.  He  holds  that 
freedom  for  the  gentiles  was  implied  from  the 
start  in  the  nature  of  Christianity,  and  that  then, 
as  circumstances  arose,  this  inherent  characteristic 
became  explicit  so  soon  as  the  opposite  was  af- 
firmed.   Of  other  debate  among  Christians  we  do 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY      293 

not  hear,  of  the  persistency  of  doctrinal  contro- 
versy which  Paul's  epistles  reveal  we  should  not 
know  at  all  from  the  pages  of  Acts,  and  there  is 
scarcely  a  suggestion  of  the  existence  of  those  vari- 
ous types  of  false  teachers  and  speculative  dan- 
gers within  the  Church  which  greatly  stimulated 
Paul's  thought  by  opposition.  There  is  no  at- 
tempt to  set  forth  and  explain  the  origin  of 
church  institutions,— the  regular  meetings,  the 
solemn  rites,  the  ofScers.  Likewise,  and  perhaps 
at  first  sight  most  surprising  of  all,  there  is  not 
only  no  mention  of  the  collection  of  the  Gospel 
tradition,  or  the  composition  of  the  Gospels,  (al- 
though Mark,  who  is  repeatedly  mentioned,  was 
probably  the  author  of  one  of  them),  but  there  is 
no  hint  that  Paul  ever  wrote  a  single  line.  And 
last  of  all,  why  did  the  author  not  tell  us  some- 
thing more  of  the  life  of  Peter  and  John  and  the 
rest  in  the  time  preceding  the  moment  when  his 
book  closes  ? 

These  limitations  and  omissions  are  to  be  ac- 
counted for  in  various  ways.  Some  are  due  to  the 
writer's  intentional  restriction  of  his  scope. 
Others  come  from  the  fact  that  his  purpose  is 
primarily  edifying,  and  that  therefore  such  a  dis- 
agreeable incident  as  Paul's  rebuke  of  Peter  at 
Antioch  is  naturally  and  properly  omitted.  Again, 


294  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

his  mind  is  more  interested  in  concrete  things 
than  in  abstract  ideas.  He  tells  his  story  by 
means  of  picturesque  incidents,  not  in  the  form 
of  large  generalizations.  And  some  of  the  most 
important  of  his  omissions  occur  because  he  him- 
self stood  in  the  midst  of  this  life  of  the  apos- 
tolic age,  and  took  for  granted  as  matters  of 
course  countless  circumstances  which  it  would  be 
of  consequence  to  us  to  be  told. 

These  limitations  make  it  all  the  more  fortu- 
nate that  we  are  able  to  supplement  the  Book  of 
Acts  from  the  abundant  evidence  as  to  some  sides 
of  the  history  which  the  epistles  of  Paul  present. 
The  use  of  these  and  of  the  Gospels  we  have  al- 
ready observed  and  the  construction  of  a  general 
sketch  of  the  apostolic  age  by  the  critical  use  of 
all  this  material  has  been  the  aim  of  the  present 
essay. 

After  the  author  of  Acts  the  first  great  Chris- 
tian historian  was  Eusebius,  "the  Herodotus  of 
the  Christian  Church,"  who  lived  in  the  early 
part  of  the  fourth  century.  Inasmuch  as  he  still 
had  access  to  early  literature  which  has  since 
been  lost,  it  would  be  natural  to  expect  that  he 
would  supply  a  large  amount  of  information  about 
the  apostolic  age.  He  does,  to  be  sure,  tell  us  some 
things  that  are  valuable,  but  in  general  he  held 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY      295 

that  the  Book  of  Acts  sufficiently  covered  this 
period,  and  so  refrained  from  giving  any  continu- 
ous account  of  it.  He  plainly  did  not  have  the  ma- 
terials for  a  continuous  history  of  that  early  time, 
except  in  so  far  as  he  found  them  in  Acts.  What  he 
contributes  in  addition  is  mainly  illustrative  and 
supplementary.  Thus  he  is  interested,  as  was  the 
writer  of  Acts,  in  the  geographical  spread  of 
Christianity,  but  his  knowledge  is  limited  and  he 
is  able  to  add  little  except  some  statements  of  very 
doubtful  trustworthiness  about  the  field  of  work 
of  the  several  apostles.  He  is  further  interested,  as 
was  natural  for  a  courtier  of  the  Emperor  Con- 
stantine,  in  the  connection  of  sacred  with  secular 
history,  and  especially  in  the  disasters  that  befell 
the  Jewish  nation.  Much  of  this  information,  how- 
ever, is  known  to  us  from  the  same  sources  from 
which  Eusebius  derived  it,  and  only  occasionally 
can  he  offer  a  new  fact.  In  the  inner  life  of  the 
church  it  is  instructive  to  see  how  the  points  to 
which  his  attention  directs  itself  are  those  which 
correspond  to  his  own  historical  position.  He 
stands  at  the  beginning  of  the  era  of  religious 
freedom,  and  so  he  is  interested  to  preserve  every 
account  of  martyrdom.  He  is  a  bishop  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  and  as  such  he  is  concerned  with 
three  of  the  great  characteristic  interests  of  the 


296  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

Old  Catholic  Cliurch,— the  opposition  of  heretics 
to  the  true  doctrine,  the  origin  of  the  books  of  the 
New  Testament,  which  by  his  time  had  become 
sacred  authority,  and,  especially,  the  direct  and 
continuous  succession  of  apostles,  bishops,  and 
deacons.  From  what  he  has  recorded  on  these 
points  something  of  value  may  be  learned,  but 
unfortunately  it  appears  even  here  that  he  had 
but  few  sources  of  which  the  original  is  not  ac- 
cessible to  us.  Thus  the  history  of  Eusebius, 
while  it  is  indispensable  for  the  later  periods,  is 
of  but  moderate  value  for  ours,  and  furnishes  in 
no  sense  a  history  of  the  apostolic  age. 

Except  by  way  of  a  mere  paraphrase  of  the 
Book  of  Acts  there  seems  never  to  have  been  any 
serious  attempt  to  write  a  history  of  the  apostolic 
age  until  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Critical  investigations  of  one  point  and  another 
had  been  made  in  increasing  number  ever  since 
the  Reformation,  but  it  remained  for  the  German 
scholars  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
to  conceive  and  carry  through  the  fruitful  idea  of 
presenting  a  general  historical  account  of  the  apos- 
tolic age  in  an  independent  view,  founded  on  a 
fresh  examination  of  the  sources  in  the  light  of 
critical  study.  There  was  at  this  time  an  intellec- 
tual awakening  in  Germany  to  which  the  names, 


AXCIEXT  AXD  MODERN  STUDY      297 

among  others,  of  Goethe,  Schiller,  Kant,  and 
Hegel,  bear  witness.  At  the  same  time  there  was 
a  strong  religions  interest  in  the  whole  nation; 
and,  further,  more  than  one  gronp  of  Protestant 
theologians  had  largely  or  wholly  emancipated 
themselves  from  traditional  and  dogmatic  controL 
Moreover  new  and  powerfnl  methods  in  historical 
investigation  had  been  wrought  out  and  applied 
in  various  fields  of  study.  The  great  name  of 
Xiebuhr  still  abides  to-day  even  in  popular 
thought  as  representative  of  this  work.  These  in- 
fluences combined  to  provide  the  stimulus  for  a 
new  period  of  Biblical  study.  Both  in  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  New  able  men  addressed  them- 
selves to  the  problems  in  a  new  spirit  and  with 
fresh  energy.  The  result  deeply  stirred  the  Prot- 
estant world,  as  the  works  and  ideas  of  these  new 
writers  gradually  disseminated  themselves  in 
Holland,  England,  and  America,  and  even  in 
France  and  Italy. 

In  1835  appeared  the  ''Life  of  Jesus''  by 
David  Strauss,  a  brilliant  youth  of  twenty-seven. 
In  this  book  the  Gospels  were  explained  through- 
out as  the  record  of  myths,  by  which  Strauss 
meant  that  the  narratives  are  the  symbolical  ex- 
pression of  abstract  moral  and  religious  ideas,  the 
pictorial  form  being  largely  built  up  by  the  aid 


298  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

of  details  drawn  from  the  Old  Testament. 
Strauss 's  book  was  one  of  those  inconclusive  but 
startling  works  which  precipitate  discussion,  help 
thought  that  has  long  been  fluttering  in  solution 
to  crystallize,  and  lead  investigation  into  un- 
worked  and  fruitful  fields  where,  and  where  alone, 
the  novel  propositions  can  be  tested.  There  had 
been  many  scattering  discussions  of  the  origin  of 
the  books  of  the  New  Testament  and  of  topics  in 
the  history  of  the  apostolic  age  and  of  the  imme- 
diately succeeding  period.  It  now  became  evi- 
dent that  any  adequate  investigation  of  the  ques- 
tions which  Strauss  had  brought  to  the  front  of 
popular  interest  must  proceed  by  thorough  study 
of  the  nature  of  the  literary  sources  comprising 
the  New  Testament.  And  as  these  writings  pur- 
ported to  be  the  product  of  the  apostolic  age, 
every  question  connected  with  that  period  at  once 
became  of  new  and  vital  concern.  Furthermore, 
since  the  early  history  of  all  the  documents  which 
make  up  the  New  Testament  is  to  be  learned,  if  at 
all,  from  the  earliest  Christian  writers  who  use 
them,  the  Christian  literature  of  the  next  follow- 
ing period,  forming  the  so-called  Apostolic 
Fathers,  as  well  as  the  other  writers  of  the  second 
century  and  the  heretical  movements  of  the  same 
time,  acquired  new  importance  and  began  to  be 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY      299 

studied  with  ever  increasing  zeal.  The  whole 
manifestation  of  interest  in  these  studies  ought 
not  to  be  ascribed  to  Strauss,  for  the  elements  were 
already  present  and  would  have  combined  in  any 
case.  Yet  the  publication  of  his  book  in  1835  was 
the  occasion  of  much  that  followed. 

Considerably  older  than  Strauss,  and  at  one 
time  his  teacher,  like  him  a  native  of  the  kingdom 
of  Wiirtemberg  in  southern  Germany,  was  Fer- 
dinand Christian  Baur.  He  had  been  for  nearly 
ten  years  professor  at  Tiibingen,  the  university 
belonging  to  the  king  of  Wiirtemberg,  when 
Strauss 's  book  was  published.  A  man  possessed 
of  far  greater  learning,  historical  breadth,  philo- 
sophical insight,  and,  above  all,  religious  depth, 
than  Strauss,  he  will  be  longer  remembered,  his 
books  longer  read,  and  his  direct  influence  longer 
and  more  widely  felt.  Baur's  main  subject  of 
study,  to  which  his  life  was  devoted,  and  in  which 
his  contributions  to  theological  learning  are  of 
permanent  value,  was  the  history  of  Christian  doc- 
trine. As  a  part  of  this  extended  and  systematic 
inquiry  his  thought  was  naturally  turned  to  the 
beginnings  of  Christian  theology  in  the  thought 
of  the  apostolic  age,  and  he  applied  himself  dili- 
gently to  all  the  fundamental  literary,  histori- 
cal, and  theological  questions  which  there  arise. 


300  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

His  first  comprehensive  book  on  the  apostolic  age 
was  entitled  "Paul  the  Apostle  of  Jesus  Christ," 
and  was  published  in  1845.  It  contained  a  full 
and  very  able  discussion  of  the  life,  writings  and 
theology  of  Paul.  Of  the  Pauline  epistles  Baur 
was  willing  to  accept  as  genuine  only  the  four  to 
the  Romans,  Corinthians,  and  Galatians.  The 
statements  of  the  Book  of  Acts  he  found  to  be  in 
part  in  conflict  with  the  historical  indications 
found  in  those  epistles,  but  in  part  to  be  con- 
firmed by  them.  Eight  years  later  in  1853 
Baur  published  a  more  inclusive  work,  "The 
Christianity  of  the  First  Three  Centuries,"  in 
which  his  whole  conception  of  the  apostolic  age 
and  its  relation  to  later  Christianity  was  fully 
set  forth.  He  died  in  1860.  The  whole  number 
of  his  published  articles  and  books  on  theological 
subjects  was  very  large. 

Baur  approached  the  earliest  history  of  Chris- 
tianity from  the  point  of  view  of  theology  and 
philosophy,  not  of  history  proper.  His  first  con- 
cern was  not  with  the  incidents,  but  with  the  un- 
derlying idea  which  he  saw  revealed  in  the  prog- 
ress of  events  and  the  development  of  thought. 
At  the  outset  of  his  career  he  said,  "Apart 
from  philosophy,  history  seems  to  me  eternally 
dead    and    dumb,"    by    which    he    meant    that 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY      301 

whatever  interest  lie  had  in  history  sprang  from 
his  belief  that  it  is  the  expression  of  the  mind  of 
God.  Only  as  it  is  seen  to  be  through  and  through 
rational,  to  be  everywhere  the  unfolding  and  de- 
velopment of  the  Idea,  is  it  understood.  To  trace 
God's  thoughts  after  him  was  to  his  mind  the 
task  not  only  of  the  astronomer  but  of  the  his- 
torian. 

From  this  fundamental  point  of  view  and  mode 
of  approach  Baur  worked  with  admirable  con- 
sistency. He  was  himself  the  very  tyi^e  of  the 
learned  professor  abiding  in  the  realm  of  abstract 
thought,  and  both  the  noble  elevation  of  his 
thought  and  the  immediate  and  far-reaching  in- 
fluence of  his  conclusions  sprang  from  this  lofty 
aim.  But  it  was  also  a  source  of  weakness,  for  it 
led  him  to  make  theory  supreme,  and  dulled  his 
perception  of  reality  in  concrete  phenomena. 
The  man  who  holds  the  Epistle  to  Philemon  to  be 
fictitious  allegory  has  lived  too  much  in  the  ab- 
stractions of  eternity  and  not  enough  in  the  world 
of  men  to  be  a  perfectly  trustworthy  critic  or  a 
historian  of  the  very  first  rank. 

The  view  of  the  apostolic  age  held  by  Baur  and 
by  certain  of  his  pupils  and  friends,  who  with 
him  formed  what  is  called  the  Tiibingen  school 
of  critics,  stirred  Christian  thought  as  much  as 


302  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

had  the  "Life  of  Jesus"  of  David  Strauss.  The 
Tubingen  view  had  two  sides,  or  rather  combined 
two  parallel  and  interrelated  lines  of  thought. 
On  the  one  hand  it  was  a  critical  investigation  of 
the  genuineness,  date,  and  significance  of  the  vari- 
ous books  of  the  New  Testament.  But  on  the 
other  hand  the  results  here  reached  had  to  be 
tested  by  Baur's  general  view  of  the  rational 
meaning  of  the  apostolic  age,  which  was  his 
primary  interest  in  the  whole  study.  If  the  gen- 
eral view  and  philosophical  understanding  of  the 
course  of  the  history  were  true,  it  and  the  results 
of  a  critical  literary  investigation  of  the  docu- 
ments would  agree  with  one  another.  The  results 
which  Baur  and  his  friends  reached  on  these 
two  sides  did  agree. 

The  general  view  can  be  briefly  stated.  The 
philosopher  Hegel,  of  whom  these  scholars  were 
devoted  followers,  had  established  the  formula 
for  historical,  as  for  other,  truth,  that  progress 
is  made  by  the  compromise  and  reconciling  of  op- 
posites.  It  has  been  said  that  in  this  view  all 
history  can  be  summed  up  in  the  three  mono- 
syllables. Yes,  No,  But.  The  more  serious  terms 
were  thesis,  antithesis,  synthesis.  Starting  from 
this  view  Baur  approached  the  apostolic  age.  The 
great  conflict  which  unlocked  the  secret  of  that 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY      303 

period  showed  itself,  he  believed,  in  the  four 
genuine  epistles  of  Paul,  notably  in  Galatians  and 
II  Corinthians.  It  was  nothing  else  than  the  con- 
flict with  the  Jewish  Christians  in  which  Paul  was 
engaged,  and  which  Baur  made  to  be  the  one 
dominant  issue  of  apostolic  Christianity.  The 
rational  basis  of  the  apostolic  age  was  clear  in  all 
its  impressive  simplicity.  In  the  thought  of 
Jesus  Christ  lay  two  elements,  a  Jewish  limited 
and  temporary  form  and,  carried  along  with  that, 
a  universally  valuable  and  permanent  substance. 
The  limited  and  Jewish  became  the  basis  of  the 
Jewish  Christian  party,  and  this  was  what  the 
philosophers  would  call  the  thesis.  The  universal 
and  permanent  was  that  upon  which  Paul  seized, 
and  was  the  antithesis.  Peter  and  James  and  the 
original  apostles  stood  on  one  side,  Paul  and  his 
friends  on  the  other.  Out  of  the  clash 
of  these  tw^o  parties  grew  a  reconcilement 
and  union,  in  which  certain  elements  of  Paul- 
inism— notably  the  universal  applicability  of 
the  Gospel — were  preserved,  but  the  Jewish 
Christian  influence  was  predominant.  Out 
of  this  type  of  Christian  thought,  termed  the 
"Union  Christianity"  of  the  second  century, 
grew  the  well-known  Christian  thought  and  life 
of  the  Old  Catholic  Church  at  the  end  of  the 


304  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

second  century.  Baur  and  his  friends,  as  German 
Lutherans,  sincerely  reverenced  the  Apostle  Paul 
and  his  thought;  the  result  of  the  weakening  of 
that  thought  to  the  level  of  a  judaized  Union 
Christianity  was,  to  their  minds,  to  destroy  the 
purity  and  diminish  the  power  of  spiritual  Chris- 
tianity, and  to  build  up  that  Catholic  Church 
from  which  only  by  a  Reformation  the  world  was 
to  gain  freedom. 

Now  this  imposing  construction,  while  it  seemed 
at  first  sight  to  suit  well  the  facts  of  the  four 
leading  epistles  of  Paul,  does  not  well  suit  any  of 
the  other  books  of  the  New  Testament.  Baur  tried 
indeed,  but  without  lasting  success,  to  show  that 
the  same  three  types  of  Christian  thought  are  rep- 
resented by  the  three  Synoptic  Gospels,— Matthew 
being  the  Jewish  writer,  Luke  the  Pauline,  and 
Mark  the  unionistic  follower  and  epitomator  of 
both.  But  when  this  view  of  the  Gospels  was 
tested  it  broke  down  at  every  point.  Those  are 
not  the  true  characteristics  of  the  several  Gospels, 
nor  does  the  particular  literary  connection  now 
shown  on  independent  critical  grounds  to  exist 
between  the  Gospels  permit  this  view  of  their  re- 
lation. In  the  other  books  of  the  New  Testament 
there  appears  even  less  of  this  controversy  of 
Jewish  and  Pauline  Christianity.     Many  of  the 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY      305 

epistles  ascribed  to  Paul  say  nothing  at  all  about 
the  controversy  with  the  Judaizers  or  even  about 
the  contrast  of  faith  and  works.  The  Book  of  Acts 
presents  a  picture  of  harmonious  relations  be- 
tween Paul  and  the  original  Twelve.  The  Gospel 
and  epistles  of  John  seem  to  come  from  a  thinker 
with  whom  all  attempt  to  restrict  Christianity  to 
Jewish  limits  is  wholly  below  the  horizon.  Only 
the  Book  of  Revelation,  the  most  Jewish  book  in 
the  sacred  collection,  contains  some  expressions 
which  can  be  referred  (although  it  is  at  present 
thought  not  with  justice)  to  a  strained  relation 
between  the  writer  and  Paul. 

For  all  these  facts  an  easy  explanation  lay 
ready  at  hand.  The  genuineness  of  some  of  these 
writings  had  already  been  doubted  on  other 
grounds.  Baur  himself  had  written  elaborately 
to  prove  the  Pastoral  Epistles  to  be  the  product 
of  the  Gnostic  controversies  of  the  second  cen- 
tury. It  became  evident  to  him  that  all  these 
writings  proceeded  not  from  the  period  of  Paul's 
life  and  the  earlier  apostolic  age,  but  from  the 
later  time  of  Union  Christianity,  when  the  Church 
had  forgotten,  or  wanted  to  forget,  the  old  dis- 
putes and  was  eager  to  advance  upon  the  new 
foundation  that  had  been  laid.  These  books  were 
to  be  assiojned  to  dates  well  down  in  the  second 


306  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

century,  the  Gospels  being  set  between  130  and 
170.  The  Book  of  Acts  gave,  he  held,  a  view  of 
the  history  wholly  distorted  by  its  partisan 
tendency  or  bias,  and  had  as  its  main  purpose  to 
recommend  Paul— thus  falsely  presented  in  Jew- 
ish colors — to  Jewish  Christians,  and  to  show  that 
he  and  Peter  together,  and  not  either  one  alone, 
were  the  proper  heroes  of  Christian  history.  The 
epistles  of  Paul  (except  the  great  four)  were  in- 
tended to  secure  the  great  advantage  of  Paul's 
name  and  authority  for  doctrines  of  later  growth. 
This  entire  reconstruction  of  early  Christian 
history  sounds  incredible  when  it  is  baldly  stated 
in  a  brief  review.  "When  presented  at  length  in 
detail, buttressed  at  every  point  by  able  arguments 
of  literary  and  historical  criticism,  it  is  a  daz- 
zling and  a  fascinating  picture;  and  it  made  a 
powerful  impression  on  many  who  read  the  suc- 
cessive books  in  which  it  was  gradually  wrought 
out.  To  many  it  seemed  at  last  to  have  brought 
the  recalcitrant  period  of  the  founding  of  Chris- 
tianity into  relation  with  the  general  history  of 
the  world  and  of  human  thought  and  with  rational 
philosophy.  From  this  side  it  was  greeted  as  pro- 
viding the  permanent  basis  for  all  future  work, 
a  construction  of  the  history  founded  not  on  the 
shifting  sands  of  tradition,  but  on  the  solid  rock 


ANXIEXT  AND  MODERN  STUDY      307 

of  critically  ascertained  fact.  By  those,  however, 
who  occupied  the  point  of  view  of  traditional 
Christianity  the  revolutionary  significance  of 
these  ideas  was  instantly  seen.  The  greater  part 
of  the  New  Testament  was  to  be  deemed  a  mass  of 
deliberate  forgeries ;  the  Book  of  Acts  was  utterly 
untrustworthy;  the  Gospels  so  late  that  there 
seemed  abundant  room  for  the  growth  of  every 
sort  of  error,  legend,  and  myth.  Learned  scholars 
could  perhaps  rebuild  their  religion  by  a  recon- 
dite method  of  speculative  philosophy ;  but  popu- 
lar Christianity  was  then,  even  more  than  to-day, 
held  to  depend  for  its  proof  mainly  on  the  narra- 
tives of  miraculous  events  contained  in  the  Gos- 
pels. Necessarily  these  new  views  stimulated  to 
fresh  and  thorough  investigation  by  those  whose 
fundamental  principles  made  them  sure  that  the 
Tiibingen  views  were  wrong. 

The  Tiibingen  work  had  been  philosophical  in 
its  motive;  its  method  of  proof  was  historical. 
This  compelled  the  opponents  of  Baur,  as  well  as 
his  later  successors,  to  follow  a  rigidly  historical 
method,  and  the  result  has  been  of  enormous  ad- 
vantage to  the  study  of  Christian  history.  In- 
cidentally the  Tiibingen  view  has  been  shown  to 
be  wi'ong,  and  to-day  is  perhaps  held  by  no 
scholar  of  note,  although  some  aged  men  still  hold 


308  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

views  approximating  to  it.  If  it  is  the  custom  to- 
day to  laud  the  Tiibingen  scholars  and  to  reject 
their  teaching,  the  reason  is  that  that  teaching 
was  the  product  of  the  imperfect  application  un- 
der strong  but  honest  prejudice  of  sound  critical 
methods.    Hence  it  w^as  a  fruitful  failure. 

Before  we  turn  to  the  later  critical  study  it 
may  be  interesting  to  delay  for  a  moment  to  note 
the  situation  in  this  immediate  community  of 
New  England  at  the  time  when  these  books  were 
stirring  thought  in  Germany.  The  rapidity  of 
the  development  of  these  studies  in  the  last  half- 
century  is  one  of  the  interesting  aspects  of  the 
subject.  Persons  are  still  living  who  well  remem- 
ber the  year  1835,  in  which  appeared  Strauss  *s 
Life  of  Jesus.  The  period  from  1835  to  1850 
represents  the  height  of  the  controversy  between 
Unitarians  and  Orthodox  Congregationalists  in 
Massachusetts,  and  the  revival  of  religious  zeal  in 
the  orthodox  behalf  to  which  that  controversy 
gave  rise.  It  was  the  time  in  which  within  the 
Unitarian  body  the  division  into  the  camps  of 
Theodore  Parker  and  of  Channing  was  taking 
place.  In  1838  Emerson  delivered  his  Divinity 
School  Address ;  in  1841  Parker  preached  the  ser- 
mon on  **The  Transient  and  the  Permanent  in 
Christianity"  which  stirred  so  deeply  the  opposi- 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY      309 

tion  of  his  less  radical  brethren.  Questions  equally 
far-reaching  in  their  bearings  with  the  German 
ones  were  thus  being  raised  among  us,  but  they 
were  not  yet  made  the  subject  of  so  thorough  or  so 
learned  discussions  and  their  character  was  not 
such  as  greatly  to  stimulate  historical  scholarship. 
At  about  the  same  time  Horace  Bushnell  was 
beginning  in  Connecticut  his  productive  career. 
His  book  ''God  in  Christ"  was  published  in  1849. 
In  general  the  investigation  of  New  Testament 
history  in  a  purely  scientific  spirit  apart  from  its 
direct  practical  bearings  upon  other  theological 
controversy  was  not  at  that  period  much  pursued 
in  this  country. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  England.  At  that 
moment  nearly  all  vital  religious  thought  in  Eng- 
land was  occupied  with  the  questions  arising  out 
of  the  Tractarian  movement  and  the  Catholic 
revival.  The  famous  "Tract  No.  XC"  was  pub- 
lished in  1841,  and  all  England  was  occupied  in 
an  intense  study  of  the  Church  Fathers,  which  was 
not  as  a  rule  pushed  back  with  vigor  to  the  early 
second  century,  still  less  to  the  apostolic  age  and 
the  New  Testament.  In  a  few  years  this  state  of 
things  was  profoundly  changed  both  in  England 
and  in  America. 

At  first,  however,  it  was  in  Germany  that  the 


310  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

debate  over  the  new  and,  as  they  assumed  to  be 
called,  critical  views  of  early  Christian  history 
was  undertaken.  Only  a  wholly  new  defence 
of  traditional  ideas  could  meet  this  attack,  so  that 
the  older  men  who  attempted  the  task  made  little 
impression  on  the  discussion.  The  real  reply, 
which  inflicted  a  mortal  wound,  came  from  a  man 
of  the  younger  generation,  Albrecht  Ritschl,  him- 
self a  pupil  of  Baur  who  had  learned  the  lesson 
of  his  master's  method.  He  died  in  1889,  and  is 
more  famous  at  present  as  the  founder  of  a  school 
of  devout  liberal  theologians  than  for  his  con- 
tributions to  history.  Whether  his  permanent 
fame  may  not  rather  depend  upon  the  latter  may 
well  be  doubted.  Kitschl  published  in  1857, 
twelve  years  after  Baur's  "Paul,"  a  small  book 
entitled  "The  Rise  of  the  Old  Catholic  Church," 
in  which  he  discussed  and  portrayed  on  a  broad 
canvas  the  principles  and  tendencies  of  early 
Christian  history.  It  w-as  a  stroke  which  pierced 
the  armor  of  Tiibingen,  and  gave  a  deathblow 
because  it  smote  a  vital  part. 

Ritschl  pointed  out  that  Baur's  fundamental 
notion  of  two  parties  which  divided  the  apostolic 
age  between  them  was  disproved  by  the  particular 
documents  on  which  Baur  himself  relied.  The 
historical  basis  necessary  for  the  support  of  the 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY      311 

speculative  edifice  vras  lacking.     Not  the  Twelve 
Apostles  but  other  Jewish  (,'hristians  were  Paul's 
opponents;   the   Twelve,   although  they   did   not 
hold  all  of  Paul's  views,  were  nevertheless  his 
friends;    and,    moreover,    Paul's    side    was    not 
homogeneous,  for  there  were  hundreds,  and  later 
thousands,  of  gentile  Christians  who  but  imper- 
fectly understood  his  views.     The  complication 
introduced  into  the  picture  by  these  discoveries 
was  in  marked  contrast  to  the  simplicity  of  the 
Yes,   No,   But   of   Tiibingen;   it   was  no   longer 
possible   to   say  that   the   apostolic   age   offered 
no  room   for  the  situations  presupposed  in  the 
later  epistles  of  Paul  and  in  the  Acts,  and  that 
therefore  these  books  must  be  products  of  a  late 
date  in  the  second  century.    The  vigor  of  Baur's 
logic  was  destroyed  by  cutting  away  one  of  its 
premises.  It  was  possible  for  Ritschl  to  show  that 
the  general  account  of  the  apostolic  age  given  in 
the  Book  of  Acts,  although,  as  we  have  seen,  it 
omits  much  that  we  otherwise  know  or  can  infer, 
is  yet  in  substantial  agreement  with  Paul  and 
not  in  contradiction  to  him.    Moreover  he  argued 
with  convincing  force  that  if  the  documents  are 
taken  at  their  face  value,  the  picture  of  the  apos- 
tolic age  given  by  the  New  Testament  is  a  self- 
consistent  one,  and  that  this  picture  is  of  such  a 


312  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

nature  that  it  could  not  possibly  have  been 
invented  at  a  much  later  time,  when  conditions 
had  greatly  changed. 

The  precise  views  of  the  several  books  of  the 
New  Testament  which  Ritschl  held  have  not  in  all 
cases  been  sustained  by  later  dispassionate  criti- 
cism, and,  indeed,  Ritschl  made  in  this  book  but 
small  contribution  to  those  detailed  questions  of 
date  and  authorship.  But  the  general  tradition 
of  the  Church  which  he,  rather  uncritically, 
followed,  has  in  so  many  cases  proved  to  be  right 
that  it  was  on  the  whole  a  safer  guide  than  the 
Hegelian  philosophy.  The  main  outlines,  though 
not  the  details,  of  Ritschl's  view,  as  sketched 
above,  have  been  confirmed  by  nearly  all  the 
special  work  which  countless  scholars  since  his 
time  have  bestowed  on  single  problems. 

In  England  the  views  of  the  Tiibingen  school 
met  with  rather  slow  response.  Between  1865  and 
1875,  however,  some  comprehensive  works  were 
published  in  which  the  Tiibingen  view  was  re- 
produced with  little  originality  of  treatment. 
The  most  important  of  these  was  the  work  entitled 
*' Supernatural  Religion,"  published  anonymously 
in  1874,  which  made  an  enormous  sensation,  and 
rapidly  proceeded  to  seven  editions.  This  book 
undertook  to  show  that  Christianity  was  not  true, 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY      313 

because  the  real  occurrence  of  miracles  could  not 
be  proved;  and  to  this  end  the  origin  and  trust- 
worthiness of  the  Gospels  and  Acts  were  elabo- 
rately discussed.  The  book  is  not  worthy  of  its 
subject  either  in  scholarship  or  honesty.  Its  main 
interest  at  the  present  day  is  in  showing  how  lit- 
tle trained  for  thorough-going  discussions  of  these 
themes  was  the  British  theological  public  of  1874, 
and  thus  as  furnishing  a  measure  of  the  progress 
made  since  that  time ;  it  is  also  important  because 
it  called  out  one  of  the  works  of  the  greatest  of 
English  scholars  in  these  fields,  Bishop  Light- 
foot. 

Bishop  Lightfoot's  massive  volumes  on  the 
chief  Apostolic  Fathers  and  his  commentaries  on 
four  of  the  Pauline  epistles,  while  not  including 
any  general  view  of  the  apostolic  age,  were  con- 
tributions of  great  importance  to  our  subject,  not 
only  because  to  the  mind  of  an  increasing  number 
of  scholars  they  have  seemed  to  prove  their  con- 
tentions on  the  important  disputed  themes  of 
which  they  treat,  but  also  because  they  pro- 
ceeded from  a  learned,  comprehensive  and  mature 
historical  grasp  of  the  whole  period.  With  the 
name  of  Lightfoot  must  always  be  mentioned  his 
two  friends  and  fellow-workers  Bishop  Westcott 
and  Professor  Hort.    Of  their  work  and  that  of  a 


314  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

large  number  of  other  scholars  who  have  touched, 
usually  directly  but  seldom  comprehensively,  on 
the  subject  we  cannot  here  speak.  Likewise  in 
America  the  important  independent  contributions 
to  New  Testament  learning  have  until  recently 
either  related  to  single  topics  or  been  concerned 
with  the  fundamental  philological  sciences  on 
which  the  whole  structure  must  ultimately  rest. 
In  such  studies  the  names  of  Robinson,  Hackett, 
Ezra  Abbot,  and  Thayer  deserve  special  mention. 
An  important  contribution  to  the  history  of  the 
apostolic  age  was  made  in  France  in  1866  and  the 
following  years  by  Ernest  Kenan's  "History  of 
the  Origins  of  Christianity."  This  great  work 
stands  in  many  ways  apart  from  both  German 
and  English  books,  and  is  built  on  an  independent 
study  of  the  sources,  although  the  author  knew 
and  freely  used  German  investigations.  Mommsen 
once  said  of  him  that  he  was  a  great  historian  in 
spite  of  his  charming  style.  Kenan's  ''Origins  of 
Christianity"  is  planned  on  a  broad  scale  and 
uses  material  from  every  source  to  construct  as 
complete  an  historical  picture  as  possible.  Herein 
lies  its  great  advantage  over  nearly  all  similar 
books.  It  includes  the  history  of  the  second 
century,  and  so  finds  natural  place  not  only  for 
all  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  but  for  the 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY     315 

next  succeeding  literature  as  well.  Its  critical 
positions  are  often  surprisingly  conservative,  for 
Renan  was  restrained  by  his  exquisite  literary 
perception  and  artistic  taste  from  some  of  the 
extravagances  of  German  criticism.  But  it  is  an 
unsatisfactory  book,  for  it  is  the  work  of  a  skeptic. 
Il  lacks  seriousness,  and  its  sentimental  prettiness 
grows  tiresome.  It  is  often  suggestive  and  in- 
forming, but  its  author  was  a  great  literary  artist, 
not  a  profound  historical  thinker.  Upon  the 
serious  problems  which  concerned  Baur,  and  have 
concerned  most  students  since,  Renan  often  hardly 
touches,  because  to  his  philosophy  history  is  after 
all  a  chain  of  phenomena,  not  the  expression  of 
the  Eternal  Reason. 

In  Germany  in  the  last  half-century  the  sev- 
eral departments  of  New  Testament  study  have 
all  been  represented  by  competent  and  devoted 
investigators,  and  these  scholars  have  all  con- 
tributed in  their  measure  to  the  completeness  of 
critical  knowledge  of  the  apostolic  age.  Profound 
and  massive  erudition  like  that  of  Theodor  Zahn 
brought  to  bear  on  single  points  of  lesser  and 
larger  importance,  broad  grasp  and  suggestive  in- 
sight like  that  of  Harnack,  detailed  study  of  the 
texts  like  that  of  Bernhard  Weiss,  skillful  criti- 
cism and  encyclopedic  learning  like  that  of  Ilein- 


316  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

rich  Holtzmann,  are  some  of  the  various  types 
of  theology  and  scholarship  that  have  had  their 
distinguished  followers.  From  the  ranks  of  these 
numerous  scholars  several  histories  of  the  apos- 
tolic age  have  proceeded.  The  most  important 
of  these,  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  important 
modern  book  on  the  general  subject,  is  Weiz- 
sacker's  *' Apostolic  Age,"  first  published  in 
1886.  Later  investigation  and  continued  dis- 
cussion have  now  led  many  to  different  conclu- 
sions from  those  of  Weizsacker  in  numerous 
points  of  detail,  and  his  work  will  be  supple- 
mented and  superseded;  but  the  self-consistency 
which  he  has  succeeded  in  giving  to  his  portrayal 
of  the  conditions  of  the  period  and  the  develop- 
ment of  thought  within  it,  and  the  sober  and 
thorough  criticism  on  which  the  whole  rests  render 
his  general  position  one  which  it  will  be  difficult 
for  any  attack  to  overthrow.  "Weizsacker  may  be 
said  to  have  completed  the  work  of  Ritschl,  great 
as  are  the  differences  between  them  both  in 
method  and  results. 

For  English  readers  a  similar  service  is  ren- 
dered by  Professor  McGiffert's  ^'Apostolic  Age," 
(1897),  a  useful  book  written  in  the  same  can- 
did spirit  and  presenting  much  the  same  gen- 
eral picture,  but  reaching  by  independent  scholar- 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY     317 

ship  its  own  conclusions.  Very  recent  noteworthy 
German  studies  are,  among  others,  the  suggestive 
and  valuable  books  of  von  Dobschiitz,  the  second 
edition  of  Pfleiderer's  "Primitive  Christianity," 
and  the  ''Beginnings  of  Our  Religion"  by  Wernle. 
Among  these  Pfleiderer's  view  is  the  most  dis- 
tinctive, for  he  is  a  philosopher  as  well  as  an 
historian.  He  especially  emphasizes  the  original 
Hellenic  element  in  Paul,  and  conceives  that  the 
natural  development  of  Paul's  system  in  the 
hands  of  his  followers  led  to  the  sloughing  off 
of  the  Pharisaic  elements  which  had  at  first  been 
carried  along  with  the  rest,  so  that  there  was 
left  a  "Christian  Hellenism,  which  issued  on 
the  side  of  speculative  thought  in  the  Johannine 
theology  of  Asia  Minor,  on  that  of  practical  af- 
fairs in  the  church  life  of  Rome. ' ' 

The  conception  of  the  apostolic  age  presented 
by  Baur  and  his  school  was  founded  on  a  clearly 
defined  theory  of  the  whole  history  which  was 
itself  revolutionary  of  traditional  views.  Later 
conceptions  of  the  history  have  not  usually  rested 
on  any  similar  fundamental  theory.  Scholars 
have  applied  to  tradition  and  to  the  literary  re- 
mains of  the  period  their  critical  tests,  and  then  by 
a  simple  inductive  process  have  constructed  their 
picture.     As  one  or  another  element  of  the  tra- 


318  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

dition  had  to  be  dropped  or  was  deemed  estab- 
lished, as  to  one  or  another  condition  revealed  in 
the  epistles  of  Paul  or  elsewhere  was  ascribed  a 
leading  significance,  the  picture  has  varied.  The 
unity  which  historians  have  been  able  to  find  in 
the  period  has  generally  been  conceived  as  due  to 
the  working  of  simple  forces  in  a  small  number  of 
elements.  In  recent  years,  however,  one  radical 
school  of  students  has  arisen,  having  its  centre  in 
Holland,  which  resembles  the  Tiibingen  critics 
in  using  a  comprehensive  theory  as  a  guide  to 
the  development  of  events  in  the  apostolic  and 
post-apostolic  ages.  This  group  has  exercised 
but  a  narrow  influence  on  New  Testament  schol- 
ars, but  since  it  is  represented  by  a  fair  num- 
ber of  men  of  great  learning  and  much  produc- 
tive activity,  it  is  worth  while  to  speak  briefly 
of  their  views.  The  leading  exponent  of  these 
views  is  the  late  Professor  van  Manen  of  the 
University  of  Leyden,  from  whose  articles  in  the 
"Encyclopaedia  Biblica"  English-speaking  read- 
ers can  gain  knowledge  of  his  and  his  friends' 
work. 

In  exact  contradiction  to  the  Tiibingen  view 
these  Dutch  critics  hold  that  not  the  reconciling  of 
opposites  but  a  continuous,  regular,  and  gradual 
evolution  is  the  law  of  history.    Thus,  although  it 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY     319 

is  admitted  that  there  existed  in  the  apostolic 
age  a  Christian  disciple  named  Paul,  his  ideas 
were  not  especially  original  or  novel.  He  did 
not  separate  himself  from  Jewish  modes  of  life 
and  the  Jewish  law.  There  was  no  marked  dif- 
ference of  thought  between  him  and  other  dis- 
ciples. That  none  of  the  epistles  now  called  by 
the  name  of  Paul  were  written  by  such  a  man 
hardly  needs  to  be  said.  Of  his  origin  and  char- 
acter and  his  career  as  a  wandering  preacher 
we  gain  some  notion  from  the  Book  of  Acts,  but 
we  have  no  instruments  of  criticism  which  en- 
able us  to  determine  how  much  of  the  account 
in  Acts  is  true  and  how  much  fiction.  Of 
the  development  of  events  in  the  history  of 
Paul  and  the  other  Jews  and  of  the  Gentiles 
whom  they  converted  we  know  scarcely  anything, 
for  the  Epistle  of  Clement  of  Rome  is  an  un- 
genuine  product  of  about  the  year  140  (a  date 
nearly  fifty  years  later  than  the  one  usually 
given), while  the  epistles  of  Ignatius  are  pseudony- 
mous writings  concocted  at  Rome  about  the  year 
150.  Our  main  fixed  point  is  a  circle  of  "pro- 
gressive believers"  in  the  first  half  of  the  sec- 
ond century  who  adopted  as  their  hero  the  Apos- 
tle Paul,  dead  nearly  a  century  before,  grouped 
themselves   around   his   memory  and   name,   and 


320  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

presented  their  own  ideas  by  the  aid  of  his  falsely 
assumed  authority.  These  Christians  issued  suc- 
cessively in  Paul's  name  the  various  pseudony- 
mous epistles  which  constitute  our  Pauline  col- 
lection. The  slight  differences  in  theological  con- 
ception and  emphasis  to  be  found  in  these  epistles 
betray  the  diversity  of  the  authors  who  con- 
tributed to  the  series,  the  general  unity  of 
thought  testifies  to  the  compactness  of  the  group. 
In  another  fifty  years,  by  the  end  of  the  century, 
the  "Paul"  who  had  thus  been  invented,  and  who 
was  in  reality  but  the  embodiment  of  a  school  of 
thought,  had  become  'Hhe  Apostle"  throughout 
the  whole  Catholic  Church. 

At  the  serious  detailed  labor  which  has  been 
spent  in  attempting  to  show  that  the  documents 
of  the  New  Testament  and  early  Christianity  can 
be  explained  only  by  this  theory  we  cannot  here 
even  glance.  The  Dutch  scholars  are  perhaps 
right  in  saying  that  the  same  arguments  which 
have  long  convinced  many  that  Ephesians,  Colos- 
sians,  and  Philemon  are  not  genuine  writings  of 
Paul  can  be  used  against  Romans,  Corinthians, 
and  Galatians.  But  to  many  critical  scholars 
those  arguments  have  proved  unconvincing  in 
both  cases  alike.  Without  the  unfavorable  judg- 
ment as  to  genuineness  and  date  of  documents 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY     321 

which  belongs  to  this  radical  and  revolu- 
tionary view  of  early  Christian  history  the  view 
itself  is  impossible;  and  to  anyone  who  does  not 
hold  the  underlying  "rectilinear"  philosophy  of 
history,  it  is  not  attractive  as  solving  the  problem 
of  the  period.  But  few  scholars  accept  it,  and  it 
does  not  seem  to  make  headway  in  the  world. 
Perhaps  the  most  interesting  fact  connected  with 
it  is  the  contrast  which  is  presented  by  the 
slight  sensation  made  when  even  eminent  scholars 
propounded  this  strange  view  and  the  enormous 
stir  when  the  Tiibingen  theory  became  known  to 
the  Christian  world.  The  change  is  not  due  to 
indifference  to  the  study  of  the  Bible.  On  the 
contrary  it  signifies  that  at  least  the  Protestant 
world  has  now  been  trained  to  the  idea  and 
method  of  historical  study  of  Christian  origins, 
and  thereby  has  gained  a  profounder  confidence 
in  the  Truth  and  in  the  power  of  honest  critical 
study  to  elicit  Truth. 

The  view  of  the  apostolic  age  and  its  contri- 
bution to  Christian  history  underlying  the  pres- 
ent essay  is  substantially  that  maintained  by 
Ritschl.  Instead  of  Baur's  conception  of  a  Jew- 
ish Christianity  fighting  against  Paul  until  it 
conquered  him,  won  predominance,  and  produced 
Catholicism,    we  have  seen   Jewish    Christianity 


322  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

dwindling  to  an  -unimportant  sect  and  disappear- 
ing. Moreover  Paul  himself,  though  bolder  in 
spirit,  and  far  abler  and  more  original  in  intellec- 
tual endowment,  and  broader  in  knowledge  and 
experience  than  the  Twelve  Apostles  and  earliest 
Galilean  disciples,  was  nevertheless  not  funda- 
mentally at  variance  nor  permanently  in  contro- 
versy with  them.  His  thought  was  richer  and 
freer  than  theirs,  but,  after  all,  he  was  like  them 
a  Jew,  with  Jewish  training  and  ideas,  who  had 
been  brought  to  believe  that  Jesus  was  Christ, 
the  risen  Lord.  Beside  Paul  in  the  gentile  world 
were  other  workers,  not  rivals  with  him,  but 
likewise  loyally  devoted  to  a  common  Master's 
cause,  apostles  and  evangelists  who  contributed 
each  as  he  could.  Our  knowledge  of  the  earlier 
stages  of  this  work  is  mainly  from  its  result,  the 
spread  of  Christianity,  and  from  its  literary 
monument,  the  first  three  Gospels,  which  repre- 
sent not  controversy  but  evangelism.  Later  the 
author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  built  on 
Paul  but  made  his  own  noble  and  permanently 
effective  contribution  to  Christian  thought.  So 
also  the  author  of  the  Gospel  and  epistles  of 
John,  who  was  doubtless  acquainted  with  some- 
thing of  Paul's  theology  and  certainly  rested  on 
the  freedom  that  Paul  had  won,  lived  in  a  world 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  STUDY     323 

of  thought  not  specifically  Pauline,  and  repre- 
sents not  a  modified  Paulinism  but  a  parallel, 
though  not  inharmonious,  system  of  thought.  AA^e 
have  further  observed  that  the  distinctive  con- 
trolling principles  of  Hebrews  and  John  were 
not  absent  from  Paul,  though  with  him  they  were 
subordinate,  and  that  the  same  is  true  of  many 
other  tendencies,  less  valuable  than  these,  of 
which  we  find  traces  in  Paul,  but  which  were 
evidently  stronger  in  the  average  gentile  Chris- 
tianity of  the  churches.  These  elements,  which 
naturally  were  for  the  most  part  not  Jewish 
but  Greek  and  Roman,  go  far  to  explain  the  pos- 
sibility of  the  development  from  primitive  to 
Catholic  Christianity. 

At  the  present  moment  further  progress  in 
the  understanding  of  these  subjects  seems  likely 
to  come  from  an  enlargement  of  the  field.  By 
a  better  understanding  of  later  Jewish  thought, 
by  the  broadening  of  knowledge  of  the  Greek  and 
Roman  world  into  which  Christianity  came  and 
the  perception  of  the  mode  in  which  that  world 
reacted  on  Christianity  itself,  by  a  longer  out- 
look upon  the  next  following  age,— in  these  and 
similar  ways  we  may  hope  to  undei^tand  better 
the  age  of  the  apostles.  As  we  understand  it 
better,   we   shall  find  ourselves  more  and  more 


324  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE 

convinced  that  the  power  and  fruitfulness  of 
Christianity,  in  that  age  and  in  this,  springs 
from  the  character  and  person  of  that  Jesus  Christ 
whom  the  simple  and  uncritical  reader  can  learn 
to  know  in  the  Gospels. 


INDEX 


Abbot,  Ezra,  314. 

Acts,  Book  of,  23-24;  trust- 
worthiness, 24-31,  75;  au- 
thor, 235-236 ;  point  of  view, 
289-291 ;  limitations,  291- 
294. 

Acts  of  Paul  and  Thecla,   133. 

Alexandrian  thought,  163,  263 
ff.,  270  f. 

Almsgiving,  80,  203. 

Alogi,  242. 

Ananias  and  Sapphira,  28,  81. 

Antioch,  43  ff.,  86,  113,  169, 
210. 

Apostles,  55,  207  f.;  twelve, 
77  f.,  83,  93,  209  f. 

Apostolic  Age,  historical  study 
of,  15  f.,  289-324;  signifi- 
cance, 16-22;  not  to  be  re- 
produced, 19  f. ;  defined,  22 
f.;  sources,  23  ff.,  31-34;  gen- 
eral conception,  34  f.,  321, 
323. 

Archaeology,  28  ff. 

"Ascension  of  Isaiah,"  190. 

Asceticism,  182,  280. 

Authority,  16-21. 

Baptism,  198  f. 
Barnabas,  45-48,  87,  208. 
Baur,  F.  C,  299-307. 
Bishops,  200  f.,  284. 
Bushnell,  Horace,  309. 

Calvinism,  280  f. 

CathoUc  Church,  Old,  22,  36  f., 

232,  248-258,  274-288. 
Catholic  Epistles,  36. 


CathoHc  theory  of  Christianity, 
17-20. 

Christians,  name,  44. 

Christology  of  Paul,  149,  163  f., 
252;  of  John,  260-267. 

Church,  doctrine  of  the,  166, 
278  ff. 

Churches,  gentile,  204  ff. ;  char- 
acteristics, 171-182;  dangers, 
182-187;  membership,  187ff.; 
meetings,  188  fif.,  196. 

Clement  of  Rome,  223,  256, 
319. 

Clementine  literature,  96,  217. 

Corinth,   115-116,  188  ff. 

Cornelius,  86. 

Cosmopolitanism,  52. 

Council  at  Jerusalem,  27,  88  ff., 
113,  210. 

Criticism  in  historical  study,  2 
ff. ;  presuppositions  and  meth- 
ods, 3-6,  30  ff. ;  results  in  Old 
Testament,  7  f.,  in  New  Tes- 
tament, 11-16. 

Criticism,  historical,  of  Acts, 
26-32,  170  f.,  300  ff.,  307  f., 
311,  319;  of  Gospels,  236  ff. 

Cyprian,  Church  of,  17. 

Deacons,  83,  200,  284. 
Development,  16-18. 
"Devout  persons,"  49  f. 
Dispersion,  Jewish,  48. 
Dobschiitz,  Ernst  von,  317. 
Dutch  scholars,  318-320. 


Ebionites,  95. 
Elxaites,  96. 


325 


326 


INDEX 


Emerson,  R.  W.,  308. 
England,  309  f.,  312  f. 
"Enthusiasm"   of  early  Chris- 
tians, 176  ff. 
Eschatology,  165  f.,  172-175. 
Ethiopian  eunuch,  86. 
Eusebius,  294-296. 

Franciscan  movement,  42. 

Galatia,  115. 

Gospels,  as  sources  for  Apos- 
tolic Age,  32,  36  ff.,  74  f.; 
synoptic,  219-239. 

Gospels,  apocryphal,  238  f. 

Greek  influences  in  Christian- 
ity, 19,  27,  32,  50,  71,  103  f., 
123  ff.,  160,  257,  263  £f.,  323. 

Greek  language,  50. 

Hackett,  H.  B.,  314. 
Harnack,  Adolf,  19,  315. 
Hebrews,   Epistle  to  the,  187, 

269-272. 
Hegesippus,  95. 
Hermas,  190  f. 
Holtzmann,  Heinrich,  316. 
Hort,  F.  J.  A.,  313. 

Ignatius,  179,  246  f .,  273,  284. 
Intellectualism,  259  ff.,  267  ff., 
273  ff. 

James,  son  of  Zebedee,  86. 
James,  the  Lord's  brother,  86, 

90  f.,  94,  210. 
Jerusalem,  39  f.,  44,  69,  71-80, 

86-95,  102  f.,  105,  114,  117, 

210. 
Jesus  Christ,  11-14,  19,  37  f., 

65  ff.,  137-142,  259  f.,  265  ff. ; 

resurrection,  67  f.,  69,  77  f. ; 

second  coming,  75,  165, 172  ff. 
Jewish  Christians,  38  f.,  65-98; 

return  to  Jerusalem,  70  ff., 


ideas,  75,  81  ff. ;  outward  life, 
74  f.,  79  ff. ;  "communism," 
80  f . ;  organization,  83  f . ;  per- 
secutions, 84  ff. ;  Judaizers, 
88  ff.,  118,  185,  303  ff.,  311; 
withdrawal  to  Pella,  95;  reli- 
gious ideas,  145  f.,  148  f. 

Jewish  element  in  Christianity, 
22,  48,  81,  83  f.,  161,  172,  253, 
280,  303  f.,  319,  321. 

John,  239-241;  Gospel  of,  250; 
authorship,  241-243;  date, 
243,  244-246 ;  characteristics, 
245;  ideas  and  purpose,  260- 
268 ;  Third  Epistle  of,  284. 

Justification,  156,  256. 

Justin  Martyr,  95,  273. 

Law,  2. 

Law,  Jewish,  84,  89  ff.,  153  ff., 

161  f.,  168,  252  f.,  257,  281. 
Legend,  7,  31  f. 
Lightfoot,  J.  B.,  313  f. 
Logos,  163,  263  ff. 
Lord's  supper,  196  f.,  275  ff. 
Luke,  24  f.,  208,  235  f.;  Gospel 

of,  23,  228  ff.,  233  ff. 

Maccabees,    Fourth    Book    of, 

146. 
McGiffert,  A.  C,  316  f. 
Manen,  W.  C.  van,  318. 
Marcion,  281. 
Mark,  46,  208,  218  f . ;  Gospel  of, 

225  ff. 
Matthew,  209,  227;  Gospel  of, 

228  ff.,  231  ff. 
Miracles,  5,  11  f. 
Missions,  37  ff. ;  earliest  motives 

for,  38  ff.,  60;  in  Judaea,  40 ff. ; 

in  Palestine,  44 ;  in  the  gentile 

world,  44  ff . ;  preaching,  54  ff. ; 

results,  58  ff. 
Mohammed,  96. 


INDEX 


327 


Montanists,  248. 
Morals,  91,  101,  157,  160,  182  f., 
203,  254  ff. 

Natural  science,  2. 
New  England,  308  f . 
Nicaea,  theology  of,  18,  287. 

Old  Testament,  50,  194  ff. 


Religion  in  first  century,  59  f. 
Renan,  Ernst,  232,  314  f. 
Revelation,  262  f.,  270  f. 
Revelation,  Book  of,  191,  195, 

202,  204. 
Ritschl,  Albrecht,  310  ff.,  316, 

321. 
Robinson,  Edward,  314. 
Roman  civilization,  47,  51  ff. 


Papias,  218  f.,  273. 

Parker,  Theodore,  308. 

Pastoral  epistles,  120  f.,  272- 
273,  284  f. 

Paul,  life,  46  ff.,  84,  88,  99-120 
education,    103    ff. ;    conver 
sion,    27,    106-112,    140    f. 
epistles,  115-120;  Greek  ele- 
ment in,  103  f.,  122  f.,  160 
essentially  Jewish  character 
105;  temperament  and  mind 
122-128;  physical  character- 
istics,    132     f . ;      theological 
\-iews,  134-168,  278-280;  re- 
lation  to   teaching  of  Jesus, 
138-143,  155  f. ;  influence  on 
succeeding  age,  100  ff.,  251- 
256. 

Pentecost,  78  f. 

Persecutions,  40,  84  f.,  202  ff., 
285. 

Peter,  life,  69  f.,  83,  86  ff.,  114 
f.,  210  ff.,  215  ff. ;  speeches  in 
Acts,  75  f. ;  writings,  212  f., 
217  f. ;  relation  to  Mark,  218  f. 

Pfleiderer,  Otto,  317. 

Pliny,  letter  to  Trajan,  62. 

Presbyters,  83,  199  f.,  284. 

Prophecy,  190  f. 

Puritans,  17-20. 

Redemption,  152  f.,  155  ff.,  262, 
270. 


Sacramentarianism,  275  ff. 

Sacrifice,  158  f. 

Sectarianism,  184  f. 

Septuagint,  50. 

Sin,  152  ff. 

Speaking    with    tongues,     179, 

191  ff. 
Speeches  in  Acts,  56,  75  f . 
Spirit,    Holy,    157    ff.,    164   f., 

176  ff.,  253. 
Stephen,  76  f.,  84  f. 
Strauss,  David,  297  f. 
"  Supernatural  Religion,"  312. 
Syncretism,  186,  265. 
Synoptic  problem,  224-231. 

"  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apos- 
tles," 285. 
Thayer,  J.  H.,  314. 
Timothy,  208. 
Travel,  48,  51  f. 
Tubingen  scholars,  299-308. 

Vicarious  expiation,  144  ff.,  148, 
158  ff. 

Weiss,  Bernhard,  315. 
Weizsacker,  Carl  von,  316. 
Wernle,  Paul,  317. 
Westcott,  B.  F.,  313. 
Women,  181  f. 

Zahn,  Theodor,  315. 


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